Talk:Risk compensation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It seems to me that "The vastly greater amount of data and research now available leave no doubt that mandatory belt-wearing laws are among the most effective traffic safety measures. From 1979 to 2002 traffic deaths declined by 50% in Canada compared to only 16% in the USA. If the US declines had matched those in Canada, 200,000 fewer Americans would have been killed. A detailled, yet straightforward, calcualtion shows that 96,000 of these additional deaths were due to Canada having belt-wearing laws earlier than the US (pages 404-406 of "Traffic Safety" [2]." doesnt seem very neutral. If there really is "no doubt." better evidence than this must be produced. If the US/Canada comparison is the strongest evidence, there is considerable doubt left in my mind. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.33.169.239 (talk • contribs) 06:44, June 4, 2006.

The vastly greater amount of data and research now available leave no doubt that mandatory belt-wearing laws are among the most effective traffic safety measures. From 1979 to 2002 traffic deaths declined by 50% in Canada compared to only 16% in the USA. If the US declines had matched those in Canada, 200,000 fewer Americans would have been killed. A detailled, yet straightforward, calcualtion shows that 96,000 of these additional deaths were due to Canada having belt-wearing laws earlier than the US (pages 404-406 of "Traffic Safety" [1].

I do not have the source quoted, but I am familiar with the calculation. It starts from the premise that seat belts save lives, and attributes to seat belts the differences in fatality rates between two countries. In other words, it is an example of begging the question. It is also stated in POV terms. No country has, to my knowledge, yielded a provable reduction in fatalities which it provably attributable to a seat belt law. If the claims made by law proponents were accurate, seat belt laws should reduce the fatality rates dramatically over a very short period: this has never happened. The claim also misses the point - this is not about the efficacy or otherwise of seat belts, it's about their effect on driver behaviour. Just zis Guy you know? 08:26, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Your comments suggest that you might not be familiar with the calculation – it incorporates the only really well established phenomenon to produce lower reductions than simple calculations from increased belt use – namely selective recruitment.

Belts reduce driver fatality risk in a crash by a firmly established 42%, as determined in a well-accepted study published in the peer-reviewed literature. The study is based on analysis of tens of thousands of fatalities. The only way such effectiveness in a crash would not reduce the number driver deaths would be if wearing a belt generated a 72% increase in the risk of a severe crash. Any such increase would be overwhelmingly apparent in any data set. Insurance companies would have to charge those who started wearing belts an additional 72% collision premium to remain profitable!

In principle everything affects everything – so that wearing a belt must change driver behavior. The question “how much, and in what direction” can be determined only by evidence. The evidence completely refutes any suggestion of a large behavioral response to being compelled to wear a belt.

If passing belt laws threatens pedestrians, this would show in data. In 1976 Canada’s two most populous provinces passed belt laws, and soon the whole country was covered. From 1976 through 1983 pedestrian deaths declined by 29%. During this period the US had no belt laws – pedestrian deaths declined by only 8%. This enormous difference in large samples of publicly available data does not prove that drivers wearing belts dramatically reduces risks to pedestrians – but it does show how improbable the contrary claim is.

There is a science of traffic safety. Knowledge is generated by the methods of science – not by philosophical debate. A few spurious effects reported more than a couple of decades ago are of little consequence – far less convincing than the large difference noted above. Any claim that belt laws threaten pedestrians could be tested by a before to after law count of pedestrian fatalities in 49 US states, which introduced belt laws at different times. No researcher with the skills to do this has bothered to do it because the claim that belt laws threaten pedestrians is not taken seriously. An analysis of this type applied to the repeal of laws requiring motorcyclists to wear helmets showed that the repeal led to a 25% increase in motorcycle deaths – pretty much as estimated knowing the effectiveness of helmets in a crash (p. 299 of Traffic Safety (book)).

This article talks of "perceived risk". How does one measure risk? The perception of risk we have of cars is from things like what we hear in the newspapers and off friends about people dying in automobile accidents. Society ignores freak accidents because the percieved risk is negible. Surely drivers modify their behaviour until the perceived risk (e.g. number of deaths in the paper or heard from friends) becomes somehow acceptable. Can we add this somehow? - Chris Owen 14th June 2006

[edit] Seat belt statistics

I removed this chunk from the article because the data is disputed.

The number of drivers killed and injured decreased, but at the same time there was a 75-year high increase in the numbers of pedestrians, cyclists and rear seat passengers killed, and this increase occurred only in colisions involving passenger cars, not goods vehicles and buses which were exempt from the seat belt law.

See the unresolved discussions on the same data at Talk:Seat belt legislation#British statistics anomolies. -- de Facto (talk). 18:11, 9 August 2006 (UTC)