[melling]

Most pedestrians aren’t walking on highways and seatbelts didn’t encourage people to drive faster down Main Street.

but hey, I’ve only been driving for 40 years and didn’t start wearing a seating until about 20 years ago.

Sure, you can find an extreme person to argue anything but I certainly am not familiar with this difficult to believe argument

[kube-system]

> Sure, you can find an extreme person to argue anything but I certainly am not familiar with this difficult to believe argument

I am not here to say it is either correct or incorrect to apply it to this situation.

But it is a commonly studied theory in behavioral science. And I don’t think it is considered an “extreme” theory in general. It is definitely something that is discussed enough to have a variety of studies on the matter.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation

[melling]

yes, do people drive faster and more reckless at high speeds, like on highways. That’s a great question, which has been studied.

But that’s not the point I’m arguing. Where do the pedestrians come into all of this?

“killing more pedestrians.”

[kube-system]

Pedestrian risk is an obvious hypothesis of the risk compensation theory, because seat belts can only functionally protect people who are seated and belted in a vehicle. If the driver does compensate for their own risk, the reasonable hypothesis is any compensation would be at the detriment to others.

This hypothesis was tested by researchers at respected institutions: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/4791083_Risk_Compen...

It may be wrong, but it isn't some crazy unreasoned hypothesis posed by "extreme" people with "difficult to believe" arguments.