There was good article about 10-20 years ago, in National Review on dead tree, iirc. People are risk compensators. The “safer” you make something, the more chances people take. Seat belts definitely do save lives, if used. My late wife was short and when she drove she basically had an air rifle aimed at her eyes. Short women are liable to be blinded by airbags in what would otherwise have been a fender bender.
“People are risk compensators. The “safer” you make something, the more chances people take.”
Thanks, I remember hearing the same, and I think it was the insurance companies that figured it out.
Regarding seat belts - decades back, in my younger days, I got pulled over a number of times for speeding - but I ALWAYS wore my seat belts, even though there were no laws then. I’m convinced there was a psychological effect on policemen when they saw a seat belt on a person as they walked up. I got mad with seat belt laws, since I no longer had that advantage, since everyone ended up wearing seat belts.
As to air bags, your wife wasn’t alone with having an explosive directed at her as several hundred infants got decapitated in otherwise minor crashes (in the early years of airbags)...but they had to keep it all quiet, or no more air bags. I also wonder how many overheated dead infants were due to parents and grandparents having to put the infants in the back seat, to keep them away from air bags.
I would just like to know what, if anything, is the net benefit of air bags over seat belts. I know they cost thousands per car, but I’m not even sure that they’re not net-negatives regarding safety, as overpriced efforts in the name of ‘safety’ often lead to just the opposite (such as making nuclear plants so ‘safe’ that they’re no longer built, so more people die from coal-related accidents and illnesses).