I'll look at the study a bit more later, but as far as whether letting folks go is overall safer, I think that it is. The motorway fatality rate in Germany, for example, is only 1.74 per billion vehicle-km traveled. In the UK, it is 1.16. In the US, it is 3.38 (stats pulled from Wikipedia).

In the US, lane discipline is virtually non-existent. In fact, in my experience, Mainers are better about it than the rest of the east coast. People in other states just hang out in whatever lane they want on a multi-lane highway, and pass on whatever side they want, and it gets significantly worse if there are more than two lanes. In Germany and the UK, though, they are more strict about it. You only pass on the driver's side, and you move back over when done. No passing on the passenger's side allowed.

So, while I can't claim that getting out of the way is specifically what leads to the lower crash rates overall, there does appear to be a correlation. Of course, they also have stricter licensing standards in general, and bad drivers can take the bus or the train and stay off the roads, which is not really an option in most of the USA, so there's definitely more than one factor at play.