It might be statistical, but my anecdotal experience from (mostly) walking in rural roads and lanes is that driving standards get worse year on year, even as a walker unless you force cars to slow down by meandering in the middle of the lane, a good proportion will take the invite to zoom by without slowing, giving you an entire centimetre or so of space. There seems very little anticipation of conditions and that there might be a horse, person, cyclist, or another car around a corner. Also, the cars are bigger, so they're hammering their SUVs down tight lanes with little margin for error. Judging from the periodic skidmarks and piles of car parts, there are no small numbers of errors. Given there's no expectation of encountering the police and the general sense of invulnerability drivers have (and that fewer and fewer of them have any experience other than driving), I can only imagine it getting worse.