Originally Posted by
sudo bike
And where did I think government recommendations suffices an argument?
Crap. I may have attributed a comment by Six Shooter to you.
Originally Posted by
sudo bike
Originally Posted by
njkayaker
Originally Posted by
sudo bike
Imagine if all cars were made of Nerf and accidents were harmless; do you really think people would drive as "carefully"? Of course not, because perceived risk has dropped. This is an extreme example, but it demonstrates the point. The same thing happens with safety gear. It's more subtle, and varies based on how people perceive it affects their level of risk, but it's the exact same assessment process we all make, both consciously and otherwise.
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 did answer the question (indirectly). Cars aren't made of Nerf. They aren't made of glass either (not entirely).
They do damage very easily and expensively. You'd think that people would tend to avoid damaging them.
You seem to think that ABS causes people to drive more recklessly. I'm arguing that the damage resulting from crashing cars is much more likely to influence behavior much more easily than ABS would (since the benefit of ABS is abstract and low probability).
Similarly, helmets only can protect the head but there are all sorts of other problems that can happen and are more likely: including damage to the bike and other injuries. It's weird to expect that people have no concern about those things!
Originally Posted by
sudo bike
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.
Three studies were mentioned. One was described and the conclusion from that study isn't the only possible conclusion. What were the other two studies?
Originally Posted by
sudo bike
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...
A risk-compensation related to what people actually sense seems much more convincing than the other stuff. The book "Traffic" talks about it. I don't think your typical rider is doing that (having "conversations in their head" about taking more risks).