Consider your daily commute. Is there another route that has fewer opportunities for accidents caused by another driver’s mistake? If so, that’s the way to go, even if longer.
For example, I take an HOV/toll lane to work. For years, the place where I entered that lane was a simple on-ramp that, effectively, “became” the HOV/toll lane (i.e., with no merging of traffic from another lane). However, a year or so ago, the HOV/toll lane was extended several miles south. My entrance ramp was now no longer the “first,” and so it required me to merge with traffic in order to enter the lane.
Normally, that would be simply be a minor irritation. But here it was far worse because there was no acceleration lane. As a result, there was a significant potential for accidents. And while the risk on any one day would be low, the overall chance for an accident would add up since I’d be facing it day in and day out.
To avoid this, I changed the place that I entered the HOV/toll lane, using an on-ramp far north of the old one. This ramp also required merging, but it had a long acceleration lane, and so it was far safer.
Making this change also required me to find an entirely new way to drive to the highway, but that itself was a blessing in disguise because that new route, while physically longer than the old route, had far less traffic and thus was much more easy/pleasant to drive.
One Idea 