

The main issue is distance (and speed), not time. Your far less likely to be in a fatal car crash (or crash out any kind) in slow-moving city traffic jams vs driving from your rural house to your job in the next small town doing 85 mph on a 2-lane highway, which is the scenario a lot of folks in rural areas have every day
Correlation is not causation. They never addressed speed or distance, which are clearly the biggest factors in the chances of fatality and the chances of having a wreck at all (respectively)