At the risk of being considered a second incarnation of Yoshi, I’d like to second most of what Yoshi says, particularly about drivers. I live out of town (but with lots of refugees from the NY area) and I’m petrified at the way people drive. Whenever possible I jaywalk in the middle of the block to avoid the close calls with people zipping around the corner with a phone mashed to their ear. The miracle is that so few people get hurt. My Dad, a”h told me that whenever you see a ball bounce into the street, you hit the brakes, because there will be a child right behind it. We can’t expect a six-year-old to think first – that’s our job as adults.
As for kids, it depends entirely on the neighborhood, and in some part on the kid. Some places aresafe for kids to wander around in, some places aren’t even safe for an adult. Some kids are reliable, some aren’t. I don’t think that most of the little ones you see are entirely unsupervised. Usually there’s an adult or an older sibling around somewhere. To let a two-year-old outside alone is probably considered as neglect, though.
Remember they’re the kids, we’re the adults, and put down that phone and pay attention to where your car is headed.