Anti-lock brakes, if I remember correctly, had essentially no safety effect in the real world. Stability control, on the other hand, dropped single car accidents by something like a third. Perhaps you were thinking of that?
Regardless of that, the threat environment has changed pretty dramatically in the last two decades. I gave up my 2006 VW sedan for a new SUV this year because the IIHS numbers had started to look bad for lighter vehicles.
Back in 2006 the previous gen VW Passat was basically as safe as anything you could buy (according to their dataset). Now you need something a lot bigger to be upper tier.
The new vehicle is a plug-in so in the first 4 months of driving I've more than doubled my fuel efficiency. So there's that, anyway.
Regardless of that, the threat environment has changed pretty dramatically in the last two decades. I gave up my 2006 VW sedan for a new SUV this year because the IIHS numbers had started to look bad for lighter vehicles.
https://www.iihs.org/ratings/driver-death-rates-by-make-and-...
Back in 2006 the previous gen VW Passat was basically as safe as anything you could buy (according to their dataset). Now you need something a lot bigger to be upper tier.
The new vehicle is a plug-in so in the first 4 months of driving I've more than doubled my fuel efficiency. So there's that, anyway.