Reducing the Accident Rate

I just got done reading a book called "They Called It Pilot Error"
and boy are we in trouble if some of the knuckleheads that
are in this book are in any numbers out there. Gladly, most
of the really stupid ones died in the accidents mentioned in
this book, but you know if those existed, theres 10x that many
that just havent crashed or had close ones yet.
Pilots on drugs and alcohol, with expired licenses/medicals,
blatantly breaking reg after reg, making up their own
approaches and rules, and of course the comical one about
those drunk dudes shooting holes through their own wings.

They have to really skew the averages, so I dont see any
hope of reducing the accident rate as long as these boneheads
are among us. And of course the media jump on these stories
like flies on sh*t, which of course they themselves are.
On this recent really long trip I took, I got flight following
everywhere that I wasn't IFR, and I heard a lot of 'lost' sounding
pilots on freq, not literally, but as if they had no clue as to
what they were up to. And controllers having to repeatedly
ask them. And of course while on the sector I hear stuff
that make me wonder how fun can it possibly be for this
pilot who sounds as if he's 100 miles behind the airplane and
no clue what's right ahead of him (hills/weather). I brush
some of that off as poor radio technique or nerves, some of
it, not all of it.

I dont see the rate going down, not with an aging fleet, and an
aging group of pilots. Mathematically, isnt that impossible
anyway? Less airplanes and even with a level number of
crashes? Assuming the airplanes involved are no longer in
service?

Anyway, I'm rambling, and the only accident rate I care about
is my personal rate. But check out that book, it's pretty sad,
and of course the author and NASA rep seem to have an
axe to grind.

Chris