My intuition is that car drivers don’t care about car safety. Sure, when considering the purchase an automobile the buyer may eliminate those models that have a 1 out of 5 safety rating and pay extra attention to the models that are considered high safety but that’s just because you purchase fuzzies that way. You don’t want to signal that you don’t care about safety and buying a safe car feels like the responsible and adult thing to do.
The same people who buy “safe” cars drive when tired and take insufficient breaks, even though study after study shows this can be as dangerous as driving while intoxicated. And they’ll happily play with their iPod or make distracting phone calls even though this too is known to be dangerous.
Studies show that after the introduction of the seat belt people started driving more aggressively and kept less distance. If I recall correctly the discovered trend was that when people feel more safe they drive more aggressively to compensate. Likewise, if the car feels unsafe or unstable people anticipate better and drive more attentively. My own experience backs this up insofar my driving style changes the moment I switch to winter tires (it shouldn’t change; I should just be happy my car is now safer). Given that driving is one of the most dangerous activities in life we should be extremely cautious, yet we aren’t.
We care only about relative car safety. You don’t want to drive in a car that’s much less safe than the average car on the road, even though driving risk should be compared to other risks in your daily life and not to the driving risks other people take.
Edit:
I shouldn’t have said that people don’t care about car safety. People do care (because if you ask them that’s what they’d answer) but their actions are inconsistent with that belief. So it’s a form of status quo bias. The current situation is seen as perfectly acceptable and slightly safer cars are seen as slightly better and slightly less safe cars are seen as slightly worse.
In the automobile market where only relative safety matters there is no need to make wild innovations. Marginal changes in the look and feel of a car are much more practical (and profitable).
Note: I didn’t look for sources. Claims about results from studies are from memory.
My intuition is that car drivers don’t care about car safety.
They definitely do care about safety. Manufacturers keep introducing advanced safety features, and automobile safety is increasing quite rapidly. (Deaths per capita have fallen 34% since 1970. This is in spite of the fact that the percentage of drivers on the road per year has tended to increase, and miles per driver generally increases as well. Some of this change may be due to improved medical care, but that certainly can’t explain much of the improvement dramatic improvement.)
In addition, brands like Volvo are focused almost entirely on safety. Why would they invest so much in safety unless people cared about safety?
The same people who buy “safe” cars drive when tired and take insufficient breaks, even though study after study shows this can be as dangerous as driving while intoxicated.
Just.… no. This is wrong for a couple reasons. First of all, people who buy cars with a reputation for safety are also much safer drivers! Volvo is once again a good example. I can’t find it now, but I recall reading a study that said that a major reason Volvos are statistically much safer vehicles in terms of driver deaths is just because the type of people who drive Volvos are so much more cautious.
They definitely do care about safety. Manufacturers keep introducing advanced safety features, and automobile safety is increasing quite rapidly.
Cars are getting safer but that doesn’t mean much. When I say “Care about safety” I mean that when given the choice between a car that has +10 safety and a car that has +10 pretty people would pick the car that’s safer. People don’t. People pick cars based on looks first, and other attributes such as power, torque, features and safety as secondary concerns. People are embarrassed to drive in an ugly car but are not embarrassed to drive their friends in a pretty but unsafe car.
In addition, brands like Volvo are focused almost entirely on safety
This too is evidence for safety as a secondary priority! If every manufacturer already had safety as their #1 priority you wouldn’t be able to advertise with “We care about safety!”. You pick a marketing strategy to get that segment of the population that cares specifically about the marketing message you send. Some car manufacturers try to get those people who care specifically about safety, some try to get those people who care about the environment, some try to get those people who care about fuel efficiency. The market is segmented based on second order preferences. Not on the thing people care about most.
This is wrong for a couple reasons
I didn’t mean to imply that people who buy safe cars take fewer breaks or drive when tired more compared to people who drive regular cars. I meant it quite literally that even though they buy a safe car they still take risks that are—compared to other risk they take on a daily basis—way out of proportion.
And if Volvo drivers indeed drive much safer than other people do this too is evidence for the general disregard for safety by the rest of the population! So again, safety as a secondary concern in practice. Right up there with fuel efficiency, engine noise and the number of cup holders.
I tend to agree with your points. Moreover, caring about whether the car will save your reckless self is not the same thing as caring about safety, when you are the one controlling the car. To borrow from a security industry truism, safety is a process, not a product. Somebody drifting left and right while trying to text a friend is not someone who cares about safety, even if they made extra sure to get a car with side-impact air bags.
/nods.But it was never really consumers who incentivized safety R&D, it was the government. (ETA: As knb pointed out, the previous sentence is obviously completely false.) If there is a relatively easy and beneficially-propagandistic engineering hack that saves many teenage lives per year, why wouldn’t governments simply grab it? It seems to me that engineering difficulties are a more parsimonious explanation for the mirage of low-hanging fruit.
ETA: Whoever downvoted this, you’re abusing the karma system. Meta: ISTM that karma voting patterns are getting increasingly more ridiculous over time. We might want to think about how to objectively measure this. We might want to think about what it signifies. We might also want to start thinking about how to counteract it if need be.
But it was never really consumers who incentivized safety R&D
This is just wrong. Pretty much every new safety feature which required R&D was introduced on luxury/high end cars on a voluntary basis, as a selling point for the business. Examples off the top of my head, are driver’s side airbags, passenger side airbags, airbags that protect the knees, anti-lock brakes, and laminated glass. Usually the governments eventually mandate inclusion on cheap cars, too.
You’re right, I used the wrong sentence entirely, I’m not really sure where it came from, though I remember I was thinking about seatbelt laws when I was writing it, and I was thinking about that ’cuz Zed brought up risk homeostasis… that’s weird, that’s the second time my brain has automatically generated a completely false rationalization out of nowhere in the past month when I was extremely tired. That is effing annoying.
Actually seat belts do qualify. Ford offered seat belts as options in 1955 and they became standard on new Saabs 3 years later. Seatbelts did not become mandatory anywhere in the world until the 1970s.
I would conclude instead that the seemingly low-hanging fruit is not low-hanging.
Every time you make something that is perceived as a wild innovation you’re betting the entire brand of your company on that innovation. The public is completely unforgiving when car manufacturers mess up and the industry compensates accordingly.
Government could enforce it, but which elected official is going to put his weight behind it? There’s nothing to be gained and everything to be lost.
I shouldn’t have said that people don’t care about car safety. People do care (because if you ask them that’s what they’d answer) but their actions are inconsistent with that belief. So it’s a form of status quo bias. The current situation is seen as perfectly acceptable and slightly safer cars are seen as slightly better and slightly less safe cars are seen as slightly worse.
Perhaps things like playing an ipod in the car, driving tired etc. are due to the bandwagon effect? I think that most people do initially desire vehicle safety, but as you drive more and more, especially when you are driving with other people in the car, you will tend to pick up unsafe driving habits because other people are encouraging this (they do it as well, and nothing bad has happened to them, yet).
Looking at your example of the introduction of seat belts, I’m inclined to think that these people vastly overestimated the added safety of the seat belts because they already considered the car relatively safe after having driven without them for a long enough time. Thus the seat belt meant, to them, that they could take bigger risks and be more aggressive in order to get to their destination faster.
My intuition is that car drivers don’t care about car safety. Sure, when considering the purchase an automobile the buyer may eliminate those models that have a 1 out of 5 safety rating and pay extra attention to the models that are considered high safety but that’s just because you purchase fuzzies that way. You don’t want to signal that you don’t care about safety and buying a safe car feels like the responsible and adult thing to do.
The same people who buy “safe” cars drive when tired and take insufficient breaks, even though study after study shows this can be as dangerous as driving while intoxicated. And they’ll happily play with their iPod or make distracting phone calls even though this too is known to be dangerous.
Studies show that after the introduction of the seat belt people started driving more aggressively and kept less distance. If I recall correctly the discovered trend was that when people feel more safe they drive more aggressively to compensate. Likewise, if the car feels unsafe or unstable people anticipate better and drive more attentively. My own experience backs this up insofar my driving style changes the moment I switch to winter tires (it shouldn’t change; I should just be happy my car is now safer). Given that driving is one of the most dangerous activities in life we should be extremely cautious, yet we aren’t.
We care only about relative car safety. You don’t want to drive in a car that’s much less safe than the average car on the road, even though driving risk should be compared to other risks in your daily life and not to the driving risks other people take.
Edit:
I shouldn’t have said that people don’t care about car safety. People do care (because if you ask them that’s what they’d answer) but their actions are inconsistent with that belief. So it’s a form of status quo bias. The current situation is seen as perfectly acceptable and slightly safer cars are seen as slightly better and slightly less safe cars are seen as slightly worse.
In the automobile market where only relative safety matters there is no need to make wild innovations. Marginal changes in the look and feel of a car are much more practical (and profitable).
Note: I didn’t look for sources. Claims about results from studies are from memory.
They definitely do care about safety. Manufacturers keep introducing advanced safety features, and automobile safety is increasing quite rapidly. (Deaths per capita have fallen 34% since 1970. This is in spite of the fact that the percentage of drivers on the road per year has tended to increase, and miles per driver generally increases as well. Some of this change may be due to improved medical care, but that certainly can’t explain much of the improvement dramatic improvement.)
In addition, brands like Volvo are focused almost entirely on safety. Why would they invest so much in safety unless people cared about safety?
Just.… no. This is wrong for a couple reasons. First of all, people who buy cars with a reputation for safety are also much safer drivers! Volvo is once again a good example. I can’t find it now, but I recall reading a study that said that a major reason Volvos are statistically much safer vehicles in terms of driver deaths is just because the type of people who drive Volvos are so much more cautious.
Cars are getting safer but that doesn’t mean much. When I say “Care about safety” I mean that when given the choice between a car that has +10 safety and a car that has +10 pretty people would pick the car that’s safer. People don’t. People pick cars based on looks first, and other attributes such as power, torque, features and safety as secondary concerns. People are embarrassed to drive in an ugly car but are not embarrassed to drive their friends in a pretty but unsafe car.
This too is evidence for safety as a secondary priority! If every manufacturer already had safety as their #1 priority you wouldn’t be able to advertise with “We care about safety!”. You pick a marketing strategy to get that segment of the population that cares specifically about the marketing message you send. Some car manufacturers try to get those people who care specifically about safety, some try to get those people who care about the environment, some try to get those people who care about fuel efficiency. The market is segmented based on second order preferences. Not on the thing people care about most.
I didn’t mean to imply that people who buy safe cars take fewer breaks or drive when tired more compared to people who drive regular cars. I meant it quite literally that even though they buy a safe car they still take risks that are—compared to other risk they take on a daily basis—way out of proportion.
And if Volvo drivers indeed drive much safer than other people do this too is evidence for the general disregard for safety by the rest of the population! So again, safety as a secondary concern in practice. Right up there with fuel efficiency, engine noise and the number of cup holders.
I tend to agree with your points. Moreover, caring about whether the car will save your reckless self is not the same thing as caring about safety, when you are the one controlling the car. To borrow from a security industry truism, safety is a process, not a product. Somebody drifting left and right while trying to text a friend is not someone who cares about safety, even if they made extra sure to get a car with side-impact air bags.
/nods.But it was never really consumers who incentivized safety R&D, it was the government. (ETA: As knb pointed out, the previous sentence is obviously completely false.) If there is a relatively easy and beneficially-propagandistic engineering hack that saves many teenage lives per year, why wouldn’t governments simply grab it? It seems to me that engineering difficulties are a more parsimonious explanation for the mirage of low-hanging fruit.
ETA: Whoever downvoted this, you’re abusing the karma system. Meta: ISTM that karma voting patterns are getting increasingly more ridiculous over time. We might want to think about how to objectively measure this. We might want to think about what it signifies. We might also want to start thinking about how to counteract it if need be.
This is just wrong. Pretty much every new safety feature which required R&D was introduced on luxury/high end cars on a voluntary basis, as a selling point for the business. Examples off the top of my head, are driver’s side airbags, passenger side airbags, airbags that protect the knees, anti-lock brakes, and laminated glass. Usually the governments eventually mandate inclusion on cheap cars, too.
You’re right, I used the wrong sentence entirely, I’m not really sure where it came from, though I remember I was thinking about seatbelt laws when I was writing it, and I was thinking about that ’cuz Zed brought up risk homeostasis… that’s weird, that’s the second time my brain has automatically generated a completely false rationalization out of nowhere in the past month when I was extremely tired. That is effing annoying.
Not seat belts, though.
Actually seat belts do qualify. Ford offered seat belts as options in 1955 and they became standard on new Saabs 3 years later. Seatbelts did not become mandatory anywhere in the world until the 1970s.
On luxury cars first?
I would conclude instead that the seemingly low-hanging fruit is not low-hanging.
Every time you make something that is perceived as a wild innovation you’re betting the entire brand of your company on that innovation. The public is completely unforgiving when car manufacturers mess up and the industry compensates accordingly.
Government could enforce it, but which elected official is going to put his weight behind it? There’s nothing to be gained and everything to be lost.
Perhaps things like playing an ipod in the car, driving tired etc. are due to the bandwagon effect? I think that most people do initially desire vehicle safety, but as you drive more and more, especially when you are driving with other people in the car, you will tend to pick up unsafe driving habits because other people are encouraging this (they do it as well, and nothing bad has happened to them, yet).
Looking at your example of the introduction of seat belts, I’m inclined to think that these people vastly overestimated the added safety of the seat belts because they already considered the car relatively safe after having driven without them for a long enough time. Thus the seat belt meant, to them, that they could take bigger risks and be more aggressive in order to get to their destination faster.