Crumple zones and needing a 'big car' is old fashioned safety.
Probably the best cars to study are the big brothers of the Smart Car - the Mercedes A and B series. The original A series had a problem with the elk test, that was fixed and is a side issue to the main safety advances.
The passenger cell is the key part, ideally you want the engine to go under it rather than land in the passengers laps. That is a key innovation for whether you can walk out afterwards.
Next is the steel the passenger cell is made of. It doesn't crumple, things bounce off it.
Then the real big innovations for survival are inside the passenger cell. Those airbags, the way the seat belt tensions, the way the steering column collapses. These are big things.
There is a 'Fifth Gear' episode on Youtube that you can watch to see how all of this works. They crash a big Volvo that happens to be a decade old and built when the crumple one was king into a modern Renault hatchback. In the hatchback the passenger compartment stays as is, all of the airbags go off, the crash test dummies walk off with not so much as a scratch. Even the doors open. Meanwhile, the Volvo is a scene of carnage. The firemen have to cut the crash test dummies out, leaving their amputated legs behind.
Personally I would want a full rally-car style roll cage inside whatever car I had if I had to have one, however, I gave up driving after crashing into an on-coming car :-) That was a turning point for me, I no longer derived pleasure from speed or sitting in traffic. I cycle now, or get the train. The accidents I am particularly keen to avoid are the rapid decelerations where, regardless of airbaggage, the brain crashes into the inside of one's skull to result in the same sort of complications Shumaker is having now (wish him well). His incident was skiing, not driving, but the same principle applies.
Speaking of F1, I would like to see a Google car do the new Electric Formula E series, lapping every driver on the grid like some mad Scalextric car, taking the most optimal lines through the bends and learning the track to go quicker and quicker... In F1 would be cool too, like an automotive version of IBM's chess playing adventures, taking on World Champions and just beating them hands down. That would be cool.