3 ms·

You jest, but that used to be an argument against making seatbelts mandatory in cars. I suppose people would drive even more safely if there was a sharp metal s

• sitkack 4y ago
  This assumes that each person is responsible for their own safety. But you have no control over the other guy that puts people at risk. By mocking it, maybe we can prevent this form of argumentation earlier? Hopefully in 20 years or less we will see unsafe code in the same way we view leaded gas, cigarettes and CO2. The other thing I realized in the last couple years is that eventually, everything becomes safety critical to someone at some point. That if you think you have to just protect this one system but that others can fail, is flawed on large scales. You can't tractably realize the failure graph, and nor can you prevent a seemingly innocuous thing from being used in a critical way. The pandemic was a great lens into how human resilience kept flawed systems functioning in a way that few realized were flawed. The pharmacies in my area are still recovering only to have their problem exacerbated by more rigid controls that prevent local autonomy from making the system resilient. In this particular case, automation has made a problem worse by preventing humans from doing the little local silent repairs that they were previously doing.
• kelnos 4y ago
  Hell, this is a current argument some people have against wearing bicycle and motorcycle helmets.
  • Thiez 4y ago
    Is it? For bicycle helmets I just know these variants: 1. Wearing a bicycle helmet is unpleasant, so people will cycle less and possibly use other modes of transportation such as cars. The risk of a traumatic head injury may decrease but this is offset either partially or fully by other health risks such as obesity. 2. Other road users in heavier vehicles (e.g. cars) perceive riders wearing bicycle helmets as less vulnerable, and so keep less distance when overtaking them, thus wearing a helmet increases the risk of collision. I don't think I've ever heard someone say they won't wear a bicycle helmet because it would make them personally drive more dangerously. I personally strongly oppose mandatory bike helmets. I think one of the reasons so many people own and ride bikes in my country (The Netherlands) is that we don't have mandatory helmets. Making helmets mandatory for people inside cars would also prevent or reduce head injuries (and indeed that is why they are worn by race car drivers) so if we ever introduce mandatory bicycle helmets here perhaps we can introduce mandatory car helmets at the same time, to ensure that people won't just take a car instead.
• carrionpigeon 4y ago
  The great (unintentional?) irony of that argument is that before seatbelts, that was arguably how cars used to be manufactured. Back then, drivers were often killed in car crashes by being impaled on the steering wheel. Those in the passenger seat would die from being hurled through the window. Despite the elevated risk in those older cars, drivers weren't safer --- they were unsafe to such a degree that it formed the argument for mandating seat belts in the first place.