There are certainly a lot of cost-benefit considerations biased towards excessive safety, but what I find even more fascinating is the family of effects that are know under the monikers of Tullock effects, Peltzman effects, risk compensation, and risk homeostasis. The basic idea underlying all these is that regulations and interventions that forcibly lower certain risks motivate people to compensate by adopting other risky behaviors, so that the overall level of risk remains the same (though possibly redistributed), or even gets worse due to biases or externalities. A classic example is when safer cars lead to more reckless driving.
Where I live, there’s a busy road with two car lanes and a bike lane in each direction. A while ago, the city government decided that the bike lane was too narrow, and for the safety of the cyclists, they moved the lane markers so as to widen the bike lane and make the car lanes narrower. A few days after this change, I saw a happy couple riding on the widened bike lane in parallel.
This still seems like a net win, however. The couple may not be any safer, but they get to ride in parallel. Presumably reckless driving involves something like texting or speeding, both of which are beneficial if you don’t crash or get caught.
(If people are acting less safely in ways that don’t have any benefits, then this argument fails, of course. I’d be surprised if that was the case.)
There are certainly a lot of cost-benefit considerations biased towards excessive safety, but what I find even more fascinating is the family of effects that are know under the monikers of Tullock effects, Peltzman effects, risk compensation, and risk homeostasis. The basic idea underlying all these is that regulations and interventions that forcibly lower certain risks motivate people to compensate by adopting other risky behaviors, so that the overall level of risk remains the same (though possibly redistributed), or even gets worse due to biases or externalities. A classic example is when safer cars lead to more reckless driving.
Where I live, there’s a busy road with two car lanes and a bike lane in each direction. A while ago, the city government decided that the bike lane was too narrow, and for the safety of the cyclists, they moved the lane markers so as to widen the bike lane and make the car lanes narrower. A few days after this change, I saw a happy couple riding on the widened bike lane in parallel.
This still seems like a net win, however. The couple may not be any safer, but they get to ride in parallel. Presumably reckless driving involves something like texting or speeding, both of which are beneficial if you don’t crash or get caught.
(If people are acting less safely in ways that don’t have any benefits, then this argument fails, of course. I’d be surprised if that was the case.)