Talk:Risk compensation

The number of drivers killed and injured decreased, but at the same time there was a 75-year high increase in the numbers of pedestrians, cyclists and rear seat passengers killed, and this increase occurred only in colisions involving passenger cars, not goods vehicles and buses which were exempt from the seat belt law.

See the unresolved discussions on the same data at Talk:Seat belt legislation/Archives/2023/November#British statistics anomolies. -- de Facto (talk). 18:11, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I added an article with 2007 data to give a bit of balance, but which also discusses the risk compensation effect (i.e. it tentatively suggests that knowledge of risk compensation may actually have an effect on drivers) a little.--AmericanEnglish (talk) 19:18, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The article begins by defining risk compensation as a phenomenon studied in ethology, but the bulk of the article concerns risk compensation in relation to traffic safety. Both are clearly worthy subjects as well as obviously related to each other, but perhaps they should have their own articles? At least there should be more on risk compensation in animals.--Rallette 08:57, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I read that proponents and opponents of contraception were arguing about condom efficiency the field of AIDS prevention in terms of risk compensation. One noted critic on the issue is Edward C. Green, who argues that since people are willing take on more risk, they may disproportionally erase the benefits of condom use. This area of debate could be featured within the article along with precise references on the subject. [24] ADM (talk) 20:48, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Financial institutions made many risky loans and investments in the years leading up to the near collapse of the global economy in 2008. Borrowers who could not afford to repay loans often had little to lose and risk. Risk compensation came in the form of huge public taxpayer bailouts of irresponsible lenders who had predicted such protections. --Mark Kaepplein (talk) 10:47, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe that the phenomenon you are describing here is risk compensation. Surely it is more about situations where one person makes a gain but another person takes the loss when it all goes wrong leading to risky decisions and failuers? I assume this is a separate name in academic writing and may possibly have its own article on WP and be worth linking too from this article. PeterEastern (talk) 19:23, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. I think you may be looking for Moral hazard. Richard Keatinge (talk) 21:37, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Of course. Thanks. I have now added a reference to moral hazard in the lead. PeterEastern (talk) 15:10, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The overall tone of this article fails

Note that after we merge the two forks (below), the resulting material can be reworked to present a more realistic and balanced approach.--Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:25, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I look forward to it. But let us note that the science is very seldom absolutely definitive in this area, and, at least in the case of the UK literature on seat belts, I've seen some extraordinary wishful thinking. The relevant literature is that which tests the relevant hypothesis, and much of what's widely put forward as relevant or even definitive does not.

Separately, we should perhaps include a wider definition to allow this article to outline the effects of increasing apparent risk. The main example that springs to mind is the effect of changing to driving on the right in Sweden. If I remember rightly, about a 40% drop in the number of insurance claims, which returned gradually to normal over the next six weeks.

-- Richard Keatinge (talk) 21:55, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest that a single article will be better able to express the areas where there is agreement and not. Regarding your comments about wishful thinking of the UK literature, I suggest that you will need to come up with some good references to support that claim. Again, regarding the Sweden comment, a reference would be very useful. PeterEastern (talk) 15:05, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Risk and Freedom: Record of Road Safety Regulation by John Adams is the seminal work in the field and a reference for the changes in Sweden - and quite a bit else. 1985 but very little affected by later work. Richard Keatinge (talk) 13:08, 13 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed the neutrality banner because the article does now clearly state that initiatives like seat belts, speed limits and condom supply etc do reduce risk. It also provides good references to evidence that the benefits may however be reduced to a greater or lesser degree reduced for the reasons given. If I have missed the point then please lets continue the conversation here. PeterEastern (talk) 06:29, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Good call. Agreed.
  Howdy! 01:54, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Sounds good. I did some work on this article recently and I felt at that time that the difference between this article and Risk homeostasis were minor and a bit forced. I haven't looked at the Peltzman effect. Do either of you feel able to execute this merge? PeterEastern (talk) 08:14, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Excellent, the differences between these concepts are ill-defined, vague, slight, and unimportant. Go for it if you have the time. Richard Keatinge (talk) 09:31, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• I disagree. Peltzman had a good point, but he talked about the accident risk per unit distance driven, while risk homeostasis theory focuses on the accident risk per unit of time of exposure to traffic. These two denominators of risk should not be confused: just as the health risk per cigarette smoked should not be confused with health risk per smoker, because smokers who chose to smoke low tar/nicotine cigarettes may decide to smoke more cigarettes and thus fail to reduce the risk to their health, as emperical studies have shown. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GeraldJSWilde (talk • contribs) 03:54, 22 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Professor Wilde (I assume you're the author of "Target Risk"?), many thanks for your comment and for joining us here. There are indeed several related, but different concepts here. If I could rephrase my clumsy comment: I suggest that the concepts would and probably should all fit into a single high-quality encyclopaedic article, suitable to give casual readers a clear introduction to the topic and to give them pointers for further reading. One obvious reference and external link should be to "Target Risk" itself. Richard Keatinge (talk) 10:37, 22 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Would you like me to have a go at a merge. I now no sort of expert on this subject, but am reasonably experienced at WP editing and doing these sorts of merges while and trying to keep the essence of the message. Possibly I have a stab at it and then people who are more knowledgeable than me on the subject do a series of refinements to get it right. Would that be useful? PeterEastern (talk) 19:49, 23 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Flammability because you can't really explore one concept without the other. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:12, 23 September 2012 (UTC)[reply

]

Support per Dennis. Thanks for offering to do the work, Peter. Please carry on. Richard Keatinge (talk) 06:48, 24 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have now completed the mechanical merge itself. The next stage is to rework the new text into a more integrated and concise article. I will contribute to this process, but would very much appreciate input from other people with specialist knowledge. PeterEastern (talk)

• Is the 'Peltzman effect' just another name for the same effect? If so, then I suggest we add a brief reference to Sam Peltzman in the lead and remove the para. PeterEastern (talk) 06:33, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• How should we deal with Risk Homeostasis? I am not qualified to do much with this content, but it does seem to warrant it's own section. Do others agree? If so, then what changes should be made to the content? PeterEastern (talk) 06:33, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It appears that an IP user has restored the NPOV tag without comment. Is the POV of this article still in dispute? If so, please explain. Absent further discussion, I propose that we remove the NPOV tag. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 20:30, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed the banner with a comment requesting that an explanation of the perceived issues should be put on the talk page before reinstating it. PeterEastern (talk) 11:38, 14 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to restore the Neutrality tag. My issue is that the article fails to clearly cite the countervailing evidence, and it does not cite the alternative explanations for the risk compensation hypothesis. The fact that auto fatality rates per mile are 1/20 what they were 80 years ago. The numerous studies that show helmets save lives are not cited; only the few studies that show some odd or unexpected results are cited. Many activists oppose mandatory helmet laws on libertarian grounds; they cherry pick evidence against helmet safety to bolster their case. With subjects like ABS, there are several possible explanations why there were counterintuitive results in some ABS research: [25]:

• Brakes are not a factor in many accidents
• ABS does not help if the driver does not brake hard enough
• They don't prevent cars from being hit from the rear or side
• Some drivers during the years when ABS was new to most people were not using it effectively, such as attempting to manually pump the pedal instead of holding steady pressure.

I turned up lots of counter evidence easily with Google.

fringe theory lacking in widespread support.

I wish I had time to fix this article section by section. Until then, it needs to be tagged as violating NPOV. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:22, 15 May 2013 (UTC)[reply

]

• I have adjusted the lead to give greater weight to the cautionary note regarding the size of this effect in comparison to the overall benefit of the interventions. I note that both the seat-belt section and the speed limit sections start with clear statements relating to the evident benefits of the changes. Something similar in relation to the ABS and cycle helmets sections may also be appropriate. Overall I feel that a banner is an over-reaction and would ask you to make enough changes to the article so that you feel able to remove it. It is my understanding that such a banner is normally only used when agreement on the text cannot be reached after efforts to do so. PeterEastern (talk) 03:11, 16 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• I have made further changes to the article, notably to the Cycle helmet and ABS sections and have now removed the banner. Personally I do agree with your earlier concerns but feel that they have been addressed now. If you feel that it is still unbalanced then please suggest what changes are still required. PeterEastern (talk) 03:32, 16 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

>Consumer Reports and all major government safety agencies strongly support universal ABS on cars and motorcycles. Hence, risk compensation is a fringe theory lacking in widespread support

I strongly disagree that this is a fringe theory. It is well supported by published sources, for instance the Smithsonian magazine (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Presence-of-Mind-Buckle-Up-And-Behave.html):

...consider the possibility that some drivers have caused accidents precisely because they were wearing seat belts. This counterintuitive idea was introduced in academic circles several years ago and is broadly accepted today. The concept is that humans have an inborn tolerance for risk—meaning that as safety features are added to vehicles and roads, drivers feel less vulnerable and tend to take more chances. The feeling of greater security tempts us to be more reckless. Behavioral scientists call it "risk compensation." (emphasis mine)

Risk compensation theory does not say that behavioral changes entirely negate the positive effects of safety features like ABS brakes. Instead, it predicts that the net benefit is somewhat less than it would be without risk compensation. So even in the presence of risk compensating behavior a net benefit (usually) remains. Safety experts look at this total net benefit and make there recommendation accordingly - the fact that they recommend ABS brakes does not disprove risk compensation theory. I support removal of the banner - the article accurately reflects the published literature. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 13:47, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, although Shared space is based on the view that changing behaviour following the removal of 'safety' equipment results in less injuries, explained by Risk compensation. What is clear is that no one is claiming that the effect is simple or overwhelming or completely counterbalancing. PeterEastern (talk) 07:50, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The last vestige of counter-point has been scrubbed form the lead. The lead and the whole article is written as if risk compensation is real and is universally accepted. The glaringly obvious fact that death rates and accident rates have fallen is the elephant in the room. This Smithsonian opinion piece cites

-- Dennis Bratland (talk) 15:55, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The article needs a lot of work and I'm not volunteering to do it. But the structure isn't bad. We correctly start with a definition, "effect in ethology whereby people tend to adjust their behavior in response to the perceived level of risk". Now, nobody would seriously suggest that this accounts for every phenomenon in every field to which it might be applied. And I hope that nobody is going to suggest that it accounts for no phenomena at all at any point in human history - the idea that no human being would ever adjust behaviour in response to perceived risk is simply silly, imagine stroking your pussy cat and then imagine stroking an equally-furry but hungry tiger... Going on from there, the article is structured by fields in which risk compensation has been supposed to operate, and then it has two out-of-place sections, both on road traffic, on two leading academic proponents of versions of risk compensation as a major (not all-encompassing) phenomenon in explaining some aspects of behaviour on the roads.

I suggest that we should get rid of the headings by academic proponent, integrating their useful material into the section on road transport. Under that heading, in particular, we need to be very clear about what claims are and are not being made and refuted. A word to the wise: the various arguments aren't always founded on a crystal-clear and accurate idea of what they're trying to (dis)prove. In fact much of the argumentation in the literature is based on a failure to address exactly what the other side is actually saying. The article you quote shows this: Person 1 finds A and thinks it's an example of risk compensation while Person 2 uses a different approach to a different dataset, finds B and claims that the whole idea of risk compensation has been disproved. We should elucidate the various confusions found in reliable sources, leaving the reader clear about the facts and the arguments, not further confused by them.

-- Richard Keatinge (talk) 16:57, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The book I cited, Motorcycling and Leisure, demolishes risk compensation, and in doing so, the authors cite a number of quality studies which agree that risk compensation is a failed theory.

The problem is that the theory is much more than the banality that behavior can be affected by perceived risk. Risk compensation makes the extraordinary claim that actual risk tends towards homeostasis in spite of safety measures. That safety devices and procedures literally don't work. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This article plainly states that is is a fact that helmets, seatbelts, anti-lock brakes, etc, don't help at all. This extremist anti-regulation view has essentially been rejected by all but fringe groups and this article makes no note of these facts.

Another glaring example: Grim Findings in Latin Crash Tests at the NYT shows the direct connection between traffic deaths and a lack of mandatory safety engineering in cars. There is as much or more traffic density in Latin America as there is in Europe and North America, so Smeed's law (another questionable theory) doesn't apply. Cars in these countries lack the numerous safety devices on cars in the Europe and the US, and we see, as expected, a horrific fatality rate. Brazil has the second highest fatality rate per mile in the world. You don't need to go through mountains of data with a fine comb doing subtle analysis to see from these facts that risk compensation theory is grossly in error.

--Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:43, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry not to make myself clear. The version of risk compensation that you quote is not the one given by serious academics, nor is it the one given in the article. It is a straw man set up by people who don't like the idea. And while I'm at it, the article does not say that it is a fact that helmets, seatbelts, anti-lock brakes, etc, don't help at all. If we are to achieve a reasonable article we will need to start with the banality that behaviour can be affected by perceived risk, and then to give a good account of the extent to which this is shown in reliable sources to affect measurable aspects of behaviour, or not as individual cases may demonstrate. We could include a section on rejection of the entire idea, there would be no shortage of reliable sources, and the heading could perhaps be "Risk compensation defined as the idea that all engineering improvements to road safety are useless." But the main body of the article needs to show a careful and conceptually clear approach to the academic literature. Richard Keatinge (talk) 07:26, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Richard here. At the risk of repeating myself, risk compensation theory does not say that behavioral changes entirely negate the positive effects of safety features. I've also read as much of the Motorcycling and Leisure chapter on the subject as is available at http://books.google.com/books?id=hp2kMO8YYKEC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false and I don't find anything that refutes the theory.

I do think that the article should be clear that risk compensation theory does not assert this, and to this end I have restored the sentence in the lead deleted yesterday. It is sourced by citations later in the article. Asserting that "risk compensation theory claims safety devices and procedures literally don't work" is a gross distortion of the theory.

All this being said, our job as editors is to accurately describe the theory and provide a fair assessment of how widely accepted it is, with citations to back it up. While I believe the article could stand some improvements, the "disputed" tag is overkill and I support it's speedy removal.

--Mr. Swordfish (talk) 19:28, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I would begin by replacing the lead: "Risk compensation (also Peltzman effect or risk homeostasis) is an observed effect."

It has been observed (in a minority of studies) that sometimes a safety measure has less effect than predicted, but it has not been proven that risk compensation is the cause. Alternate explanations are possible. For example, it is known that ABS is only effective if the driver uses it correctly. Drivers have to be trained to press and hold the pedal firmly. An Albany, New York police department began having problems in 1992 when some of their newer patrol cars had ABS and others did not. The police Assistant Chief said, "Officers in pre-crash situations were confused about whether a car was ABS or not. They thought they had brake failure and then tried to pump them." ABS cars had a red warning sticker added to the dashboard, which led to a reduction in crashes by 1995. "Police Initiative Cuts Patrol Crashes",

Albany Times Union

, Albany, New York: HighBeam, December 20, 1998. For civilian drivers, far less skilled than trained police officers, you can't expect the full benefits of ABS until it is universal and you don't have drivers frequently getting into a car with ABS coming straight from driving a car without ABS and not adjusting accordingly.

Another explanation is the relationship between driving and social class. ABS was introduced on high-end cars, and slowly trickled down to cheaper cars. BMW was first. The studies saying "drivers with ABS tailgated more, drove faster" etc. doesn't correct for the fact that during this period ABS was only on expensive cars. Yet we have seen time and again that drivers of the most expensive cars are more aggressive and rude. See UK US (recently) and [26] (2010) and Traffic: How We Drive by Tom Vanderbilt for even older research showing drivers of fancy cars are measurably more inconsiderate and dangerous.

Again and again, we have correlation (safety feature + risky behavior) but we don't have causation. There are alternate reasons why there might sometimes be a correlation between a safety measure and behavior.

So first, risk compensation should be called an "explanation" or a "hypothesis" not an "observed effect". Second, the actual refutations of the hypothesis and other counter-evidence needs to be enumerated in each section of the article. I don't know if the Google books preview of Motorcycling and Leisure is complete enough; I have a copy of the book and will use it to expand the article as soon as I possibly can. Until then, readers must at least see a warning that this article is misleading.

--Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:10, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have the book you recommend, but I will leave it to you to chase the references it cites and check that they actually substantiate relevant points. We will need something more than ill-thought-through rejection to make a good article. Risk compensation is an observed effect, though maybe not to the extent suggested by its supporters and certainly not to the extent suggested by its opponents. We don't need a misleading article, we need one that is well-researched and well-written. Please bear in mind that this is an article about a theory of how humans work in the mass. For almost any such theory, it's trivially easy to show that the theory does not explain everything and that the evidence falls short of mathematical proof. For an encyclopaedia the interesting questions are: how far and in what circumstances is risk compensation a useful concept, and what is the quality of the evidence for specific formulations? Some people may choose to fire ill-aimed broadsides at ill-understood versions of someone else's ideas, but that process is tedious and best given only passing remark by an encyclopaedia. Richard Keatinge (talk) 21:04, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We need to be careful with our terminology. "Behavioural Adaptation" is the term long used to describe how humans change their behavior in response to changing conditions, in particular to changes in the road safety measures. That people change their behavior in response to changes in their surroundings is unremarkable and uncontroversial and there is a large body of academic works addressing behavioral adaptation.

The expression "risk compensation" is used by many academic researchers to indicate that behavioral adaptation relates to behavior change in response to changes in perceived risk. This is also a non-controversial term, although some of the theories that attempt to explain it are.

Then there is "risk homeostasis" which "...set the debate alight, rather like petrol on flames" in 1982 by asserting 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." This is a controversial proposition and not universally accepted. (quotes from http://books.google.com/books?id=F8HfuHnFbCMC page 28)

The article is not really clear about these distinctions, perhaps as an artifact of the merger last fall. I'll go through the article and attempt to make these distinctions more clear; hopefully this will address the concerns raised in this thread.

-- Mr. Swordfish (talk) 19:12, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Brilliant, go for it. Do bear in mind that usage does not always make these distinctions clear; in due course we will need to reference definitions as well as everything else. Richard Keatinge (talk) 20:13, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Is this article still disputed? If so, please provide concrete examples and reliable sources. If not, let's remove the banner. I'll give it a couple of days and if no response I'll remove it. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 19:03, 19 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry I don't have more time to do this myself, but I'll do what I can. Note that if the corrections take a long time, then the article should remain tagged for maintenance. The policy

WP:NPOV doesn't make exceptions for impatience. It takes as long as it takes to get it right.

Note that the chapter is Motorcycling and Leisure has copious criticisms, such as "Risk homeostasis/compensation theory is not widely accepted in the road safety fraternity", and it details not just field data that contradict it, but conceptual problems, such as the failure to take into account that people are motivated not just by personal physical risk, but also financial risk, or other losses due to accidents, and that there is no identified mechanism for people to be aware of deviations from the base level risk in order to adjust the risk "thermostat". And on and on. One expert derides proponents as "abandoning the rigors of Aristotelian logic and the multiplication table." It's a fringe theory that has not gained acceptance or been adopted in public policy. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:22, 20 August 2013 (UTC)[reply

]

Some academics have tried to build models (theory) to explain and predict how risk compensation works; there are numerous "risk compensation theories" that have been proposed, the most famous of which is Wilde's "risk homeostastis" theory. From my reading, I have the impression that there is no broadly accepted theory or model, although there is a general agreement in the academic literature that road users do adapt their behavior to risk-reducing measures,[1] that road safety engineers try to account for this when designing safety equipment, and that this is a mainstream as opposed to fringe practice. Thus, except for Wilde's theory, the article mainly deals with observations and examples rather than the theories. The article basically ignores the theories (except for Wilde's), and catalogs the observed effects as well as studies where the risk compensation effect was not observed.

Perhaps the article should more clearly delineate the difference between the observed effect and the theories. Doing so would require us to present the various competing theories and my sense is that other than "risk homeostasis" the other theories are not sufficiently notable to warrant inclusion. As it is, except for Wilde's theory, the article mostly focuses on evidence of the effect, not its underlying causes, and attempts to present the evidence in an NOOV manner. So I don't really understand what's disputed. Is there some particular sentence or paragraph whose "factual accuracy" is problematic? Mr. Swordfish (talk) 19:46, 20 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]