Well, I'm sure all of us know that seatbelts make us safer. The invention of them by Volvo, about 50 years ago, surely has saved lives, right? Certainly millions of Americans have been protected from whiplash and other injuries due to them.
And yet, interestingly enough, we have to remember this: some accidents may have been caused exactly because the drivers were wearing seatbelts.
One of the ideas floating around in academic circles is of risk tolerance, the idea that humans possess an innate tolerance for risk, and that as we feel safer, we tend also to take more risks. A sense of (perhaps false) security can be surprisingly dangerous. Some studies have shown that drivers wearing seatbelts tend to drive faster than those who do not, and that the seatbelt has led to increased deaths of bicyclists and pedestrians that had been hit by reckless drivers. Since seatbelts decrease the amount of risk present, as humans, we tend to drive more carelessly to make up for it. Hasn't the idea run ever through your head? "Well, yes, I'm driving way above the speed limit, but hey! I'm wearing my seatbelt! That makes it okay."
Similarly, despite advances made in ripcords and parachutes, skydiving accidents have not decreased. Aware that their parachutes were less likely to snag and were better at slowing them down, cocky skydivers started pulling their cords a little too late.
It's understandable. Aren't you more likely to act carefully and cautiously when you know something is dangerous? On the other hand, if you know that something is supposed to be safer, you act more recklessly. This idea applies to flood victims and Wall Streeters as well. Aware that stronger levees have been built and that the government will provide disaster relief, more and more people have built their homes on the vulnerable flood plains. Hence, after one hurricane hits, people start building in the same place again. Bankers, feeling overconfident due to their hedges and insurance, and the fact that the federal government wouldn't let them fail, may have taken unwarranted risks. Who knows?
-Eric Wei
6 comments:
We're humans. We may be able to read our textbooks and interpret readings from our neoclassicism packet, yet we still, in a sense, remain without common sense. We live to put the blame on others, to rid ourselves of liability. But look what happens: it comes back to bite us in the foot. I mean, think of it on students' terms. When a teacher promises no extra credit, we study harder. If extra credit were offered, we'd feel more at ease with something (extra points) to fall back on, unless of course the extra credit is IMPOSSIBLE, which seems to be a motif in high school education..
Anyway, the more someone ensures safety, the more we become blithe. Unfortunately, it never occurs to us that those who ensured the safety may be fallible, and we end up paying for our recklessness in some way, shape, or form. Could it possibly be that we trust too much? Do we trust car makers so much that we don't mind putting our lives in their hands?
(Sam Maliha)
I think humans enjoy being in a neutral situation. We may try to cancel out a situation by simultaneously putting ourselves in the direct opposite situation.
We can look at it in a mathematical setting and think that wearing a seat belt has a certain numerical value. Speeding or using other dangerous driving methods has the opposite value. When we add them together, we get 0, nice and stable.
This may also have something to do with the fact that humans generally tend to want everything. We want to be safe, but we also want to be daring and adventurous. We cover all the bases and end up right in the middle, where we like it.
(Megan West)
Perhaps we are just bumbling people without any common sense. But is it our sense of safety that is driving us to make risks (which some would argue is actually called progress) or are we sensing that everything is relative and what is safe now will not be safe in the future? And that we must take risks in order to progress just to maintain the (relative) status quo?
Or is it just human nature to take risks in order to better themselves? While it may not be as obvious when the risk in question is one frowned upon by society (i.e. not wearing your seatbelt, drinking and driving), couldn't they all eventually lead to something beneficial (without getting into the causation vs. correlation arguement).
They do say that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger...
This kind of reminds me of what we discussed in Euro about Freud. He stated that people don't really think rationally and that we only use rationality as an excuse to fulfill our emotional wants.
I think that this concept applies to this situation. We use the rationality that the extra protection that seat belts provide us allow us to be more reckless, but I think that we are just using this as an excuse to fulfill our desire to be reckless.
There is no doubt that, in many risky or dangerous situations, an aura of security or protection will cause people to engage in reckless behavior. Many people rely too heavily on safety measures like seatbelts and become far too complacent. Sam suggests that this may be due to our tendency to trust too much, and I agree. People just naturally trust what has functioned properly in the past and forget that nothing is infallible, and then this "false" sense of security leads them to recklessness. Therefore, those who do NOT behave recklessly are those who are more cynical of man's inventions, of the competence of the government, or of anything for that matter. Yes, there is a fine line between cynicism and paranoia (which I of all people am guilty of crossing), but in some situations it is necessary to be a bit more cynical and far less complacent.
Additionally, I believe that it IS simply part of human nature to take risks in order to "better ourselves." Certainly many actions could have their benefits in the long run, right? This aspect of our nature is a second factor which fosters complacence.
(Janet Lee)
In regard to the seatbelt example itself, I don't know if the argument is exactly accurate. I say this because people driving cars before the seatbelt was invented had never known anything else, therefore their sense of being in danger without a seatbelt did not generate until the seatbelt was invented. Does that seems to make sense?
I do see Eric's point, though. When we know that we are safer, we tend to take more risks. This can be applied to almost any area of life, I think. The bailout is a good example, and Eric's idea is certainly one that's being circulated by those who oppose it.
Emily T.
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