Yeah, I have always felt that a lot of these easy reasons for crashes (texting, drinking alcohol, speeding) are, while statistically linked with crashes of course, also emphasized due to psychology -- we all want to feel like there's something straightforward we can do to avoid serious wrecks. If it's moralistic, even better, that means morally good people don't wreck and wrecks happen when people do morally bad things.
There's not enough emphasis on the strategy and skill of driving, and that's for the same reason, I think. We've tried so hard to make driving as basic as walking, someone anyone should easily be able to do, and that doesn't fit well with something that takes a long time to master, that you can always learn a little more about.
So instead there's a narrative that all a driver has to do is obey some cut and dry rules, stop at all stop signs, never drink and drive, always do exactly 5mph over the speed limit (or is it 10? or is it 4? 7? 0?), and if they do all that they can zone out and not worry about anything but what's right in front of them in the windshield.
No immediate source, but pretty sure I read somewhere the safety stats between the best and worst drivers is one or two orders of magnitude. And the above is why. The best drivers are playing chess, the worst drivers are playing checkers. The worst drivers look at the same playing board but ignore almost all the information and just stay zombie-like in their lane till they need to brake to avoid something or their GPS says time to turn.
I'm really curious how self-driving software approaches all this. I have a sad suspicion they're programmed from a naive rule-following non-defensive point of view but would love to be proven wrong.