Originally Posted by
njkayaker
You indicated that people were implying that you should "ignore pertinent data". No one has done that. And you appear to think that authority (eg, government recommendations) suffices as an argument. You really have to look at the actual sources supporting those recommendations rather than treat them as "holy writ" (yes, that's hyperbole) so you can avoid the "appeal to authority" fallacy.
Go back and reread. That is exactly what was said by buzzman. And where did I think government recommendations suffices an argument?
You are arguing that there's risk compensation with ABS. The one "cabbie" study doesn't (necessarily) show that. The Queensland data strongly shows that the ABS is still very beneficial meaning that risk compensation doesn't occur OR the risk-compensation that does occur doesn't matter.
The issue isn't that there is "contrary information". It's why you seem to prefer information from one side!
I haven't seen the other studies. It would seem that you haven't either (otherwise, you would have linked to them).
They were cited in the Wikipedia article I posted earlier; three studies, all coming to the conclusion that ABS has an affect in risk compensation.
If I "prefer" any information, it's because it's perfectly logical judging from what I already know about risk/reward analysis in humans. But I've attached so many "but keep in mind"'s that I hardly see how I can be accused of that.
So, is ABS significantly better or worse overall? Or is it something of marginal/moot benefit?
That's the million dollar question. My gut is that it works overall, but more education can help combat risk compensation somewhat. Unfortunately, it's always a factor, and I'm honestly not sure what research, if any, has been done on how to combat that.
Of course, in this case, we then come down to whether helmets are all that effective in the first place and worthy of the risk compensation trade-off, like ABS probably is overall.
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For real cars, the most common result of careless driving would be damage to the car. Dealing with that is expensive and inconvenient. Why doesn't that cause people to drive more safely than ABS (supposedly) makes them drive less safely?
? Because you don't have another data point to compare to? If cars were made of bouncy fun material and then changed to metal, you'd have an argument. But to take your point further, if all cars were made of glass, yeah, they probably would drive a little more carefully. And I would note that you did not answer the question.
I can see quieter cars causing people to drive faster because the lower noise level leads to a direct actual sense that one is driving more slowly. I don't see what actual sense ABS (or helmets) are changing.
It isn't about the sense; it's about perception of safety. If one perceives an activity as more safe, or less risky, it follows that when they have that conversation in their head (that they may be unaware of and may last a split second) of, "Gee, I wonder if I should do this?", it's going to skew the results. Do you really not see how this would be? It seems so self-evident to me...