In the city I live there have been a number of high-profile accidents involving buses and trains, buses and other buses, and buses and other traffic. The drivers may get an extra couple week course, but they are still driving a giant vehicle, and I don't even think many of the drivers are necessarily 'better' - if your entire population drives pretty much every day, then they are all effectively 'professional'.
The same goes for the 18-wheelers, as we often see quite a few accidents involving those on the highways. Sometimes people even walk away from these accidents when they are driving the bigger cars. The smaller ones... not so much. The fact remains that the larger, heavier cars are much safer when involved in accidents with cars even larger and heavier than they are - in most cases. There exist very well engineered and safe smaller vehicles, but that will only get you so far. I hope it gets better over time.
And I think you're all wasting your time on a useless tangent--there's no reason commuters should have to share the roads with larger vehicles anyway, if some streets are more or less reserved for bicycles or mass transit is used.
