Monday, September 20, 2010

More Peltzman

From Tyler Cowen's blog, Marginal Revolution:
The Peltzman Effect

The NHTSA had volunteers drive a test track in cars with automatic lane departure correction, and then interviewed the drivers for their impressions. Although the report does not describe the undoubted look of horror on the examiner’s face while interviewing one female, 20-something subject, it does relay the gist of her comments.

After she praised the ability of the car to self-correct when she drifted from her lane, she noted that she would love to have this feature in her own car. Then, after a night of drinking in the city, she would not have to sleep at a friend’s house before returning to her rural home.

From CSV. The Peltzman effect doesn't mean that improvements in safety are always negated but it does remind us that we can never ignore the human response.

1 comment:

  1. That just shows how the best intentions not always have the best results. So now do we need to install a system that measures your BAC (blood alcohol content) before you drive? do the number of deaths prevented justify the extra expense? This shows that you can't be prefectly safe, even if you have back up systems in place to prevent injury there is always what I like to call the idiot factor (there is always one idiot out there) and the extra cost for that additional safety is only marginally better over the cost.

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