Honda Fit    1,070–1,280 kg (2,359–2,822 lb)
  Mazda Miata        1,058 kg (2,332 lb)
  Mitsubishi Mirage    955 kg (2,106 lb)

Safety standards have driven a lot of that. Air bags, impact beams, high hood line for pedestrian safety, rollover protection, ABS, etc all add weight, which disproportionately impacts small cars. An SUV with a V8 doesn't care, but it's a pretty significant thing to add a few hundred pounds to what used to be a 1500 lb subcompact. It requires a bigger engine to keep performance acceptable, and now you need bigger brakes for the extra power, a better suspension for the higher center of mass, and it all just snowballs.

And that's where consumer choice comes in: people look at a "subcompact", and find that they're heavy, inefficient, and expensive, which are exactly the opposite of what they want in a subcompact car. Once you've already made those concessions, you might as well buy something bigger.

A Toyota Prius can maintain ~90 mph on I-294 around Chicago. Anything above 95 mph degraded the tire traction to an unsafe level. (Personal experience.)

I don’t do that much anymore now that my manic episodes are under control and I’m better able to recognize my judgement is impaired.

  I actually have to set up a car alert for when I go above 90, because the car is so quiet and powerful that I can easily go above 90 without realizing (obviously on the highway) . 
  New cars have improved tremendously.

Stop signs are aggravating if people had to actually stop 'properly' at every single one. No wonder people do a rolling stop most of the time. Many European countries do this the right way and do not have stop signs everywhere but instead have the main road have right of way or rules. To bring up Germany as an example again: in many places where we need stops signs all around, they simply have a rule that says the person to the right is allowed to drive first.

Speed bumps do nothing, except very very locally. You can't have enough of them to actually slow down cars along any reasonably long stretch of road and adding so many that it would will get the locals to NIMBY them into oblivion. I can almost guarantee that. Like put two or three in front of that school, sure. Plaster the entire neighborhood with them? Forget it.

That said, I think the autobahn has pretty good engineering. None of the potholes and ripped up roads from road crews.

And none of the entitlement.

If two people want to speed, one going 70 in a 65, and one wanting to go 90 in a 65, they both are annoyed because they feel entitled to go that speed.

On the autobahn, if someone wants to go faster than you, he is allowed so you have to get out of the way, that's the rule.

But ya, the statistical argument of how often does accelerating out really help, vs. often is someone driving too fast the cause of the danger, seems very relevant.