Only about half the violent crimes in the US which involve 'weapons' is by HG. (see wiki).
About three times the number of deaths are caused by automobiles.
Comparing crime rates (which are intentionally caused) with automobile accidents (which are unintentional) is comparing apples and rutebegas. For an accurate comparison, one needs to compare accidental deaths due to guns to accidental deaths due to cars, then adjust the results by the relative numbers from each group.
As there are roughly the same number of automobiles as handguns here in the U.S. the raw numbers are comparable, and those are 43,000 accidental deaths annually for autos, and 1,500 accidental deaths annually for firearms.
Thus, the ratio is roughly 28 to 1, not three to one.
Judges and juries still let people off with no 'time' or community service and maybe a year with license suspended for a txting or cellphoning motorist who kills a bicyclist, (especially if they're female and pretty). "He came out of nowhere' is considered a defense against homicide.
That would be negligent homicide.
Killing someone with a car is deemed 'different' and called 'vehicular homicide'. In fact 'second degree vehicular homicide' is a Misdemeanor.
Accidental deaths due to handguns are treated largely the same as accidental deaths due to vehicles. Furthermore, the degree of negligence is strongly considered in both situations. An father who gives a loaded weapon to a five-year-old will receive a much harsher sentence if the child accidently shoots the mother than if the father was using a safe and the child found the key or observed and re-entered the combination.
People drive drunk and get many, many citations (an individual in Illinois got a whopping 22 DUI convictions!).
In and of itself, a DUI has not actually done harm to another. It's only engaging in reckless/irresponsible behavior which has significantly increased the potential to cause harm to other as compared to driving sober. DUIs involving injury or death to others are generally met with far greater consequences i.e. some serious jail time than DUIs where no one was hurt.
If one runs a cyclist off the road the police rarely even investigate even if you have a license plate number.
I've been on the receiving end of that... I was to busy tumbling in the ditch to grab a license number, though.
Gotta ask yourself why people just carrying HG are treated so differently.
I don't see that they are, at least not when you compare apples to apples. Your premise, comparing "DUIs" to "handgun deaths" are both too broad and too poorly defined for meaningful comparison.
There's literally no restrictions on driving.
Really? Have you read your state's drivers' handbook lately? It's chock full of restrictions.
Why aren't people calling for speed restrictions on cars...
Do you mean electronic limiters, as in something that senses what the speed should be on that section of road and will not allow the vehicle to go faster? If that's the case, people would floor it all the time! Whenever they encountered a stretch of road not governed by a limiter, they could find themselves out of control.
...or rubber bumpers with cow-catchers (lol)?
All bumpers made over the last few decades absorb energy.