Originally Posted by
livedarklions
I think your take misses the point of how and why the theory is being misused. In this case, it's being used to say that promoting wearing bike helmets will actually increase deaths because helmeted people will ride more dangerously out of a false sense of security.
Who is saying this?
If we go back to the opening post, even the one study linked in article doesn't state what the author suggests. (In Slate: "
Twenty-eight states repealed their helmet laws, with one prominent advocate claiming that motorcycle helmets actually increased the likelihood of neck injuries.") In reality, the conclusion of the cited article begins: "Over the past 30 years, helmet law advocates have gathered a mountain of evidence to support their claims that helmet laws reduce motorcycle accident fatalities and severe injuries. Thanks to the rounds of helmet law repeals, advocates have been able to conclusively prove the converse as well: helmet law repeals increase fatalities and the severity of injuries" (Jones and Bayer 2007).
It seems we have a bunch of advocates pointing out that helmets work, while twisting the anti-helmet arguments a bit. (Anti-helmet groups concede personal injury rates, but still push for liberty, which is a separate argument.) Most people who cite risk homeostasis do so correctly, as a real (and measurable) behavioral adjustment in response to changes in risk or safety, but rarely enough to offset the actual changes in risk exposure.
Originally Posted by
livedarklions
Your street narrowing example is, I think, demonstrating a different problem which is people's underestimation of the risk of excessive speed on a wide street.
Can't it be both? The problem with risk homeostasis theory, as I already stated, is that even if individuals do exhibit behavioral adjustments to risk (and they do), that their basis for risk evaluation is imperfect (as you say, underestimating the risk of high travel speeds). Nonetheless, when confronted with a change to their paradigm (narrowing a wide street), they adjust accordingly (reducing speed); this is about as textbook as you can get for the thought experiment.