Risk compensation
By contrast, shared space is an urban street design method which consciously aims to increase the level of perceived risk and uncertainty, thereby slowing traffic and reducing the number and seriousness of injuries.
[n 2] The more recent version emerged from road safety research after it was claimed that many interventions failed to achieve the expected level of benefits but has since been investigated in many other fields.
[5] A reanalysis of his original data found numerous errors and his model failed to predict fatality rates before regulation.
[7][n 5] Peltzman found that the level of risk compensation in response to highway safety regulations was complete in original study.
By way of example, if a risk-tolerant driver responds to driver-safety interventions, such as compulsory seat belts, crumple zones, antilock brakes, etc.
[9] Risk homeostasis is a controversial hypothesis, initially proposed in 1982 by Gerald J. S. Wilde, a professor at Queen's University in Canada, which suggests that people maximise their benefit by comparing the expected costs and benefits of safer and riskier behaviour and which introduced the idea of the target level of risk.
He suggested that drivers had responded to increased perceived danger by taking more care, only to revert to previous habits as they became accustomed to the new regime.
One author claimed that it received "little support",[n 10] another suggested that it "commands about as much credence as the flat earth hypothesis",[n 11] a third noted that the proposal did create considerable media attention: "What set the debate alight, rather like petrol on flames, was the proposition in 1982 that road users did not just adapt to perceptions of changing risk through compensatory behaviors, but that the process was a homeostatic one, producing overall equilibrium in safety-related outcomes".
[16][17][18] A study led by Clifford Winston and Fred Mannering, a professor of civil engineering at the University of South Florida supports risk compensation, terming it the "offset hypothesis".
[23] A 1994 research study of people who both wore and habitually did not wear seatbelts concluded that drivers were found to drive faster and less carefully when belted.
Four driver behaviors (speed, stopping at intersections when the control light was amber, turning left in front of oncoming traffic, and gaps in following distance) were measured at various sites before and after the law.
[29] A comprehensive 2003 US study also did "not find any evidence that higher seat belt usage has a significant effect on driving behavior."
[41] A Spanish study of traffic accidents between 1990 and 1999 found no strong evidence of risk compensation in helmet wearers but concluded that "this possibility cannot be ruled out".
[48] This principle is recognised in some martial arts, including karate, where it is suggested that wearing protective gloves might lead to harder strikes and punches, possibly resulting in more severe injuries.
When hard shells were first introduced, the number of head injuries increased because players had a false sense of security and made more dangerous tackles.
[1][55] Even though skydiving equipment has made huge leaps forward in terms of reliability, including the introduction of safety devices such as AADs, the fatality rate has stayed roughly constant when adjusted for the increasing number of participants.
[n 16] A greater number of landing fatalities in recent years has been attributed to high speed maneuvers close to the ground.
Harvard researcher Edward C. Green argued that the risk compensation phenomenon could explain the failure of condom distribution programs to reverse HIV prevalence, providing a detailed explanations of his views in an op-ed article for The Washington Post[59] and an extended interview with the BBC.
