Peltzman effect

The tendency for people to take greater risks when safety measures lower the expected costs of risky behavior, partly offsetting those measures’ benefits.

Risk compensation: Behavioral adjustment in which people take greater risks when they feel safer or face lower consequences. The Peltzman effect is a specific form of this broader behavioral response.
Sam Peltzman: An American economist known for research on regulation, safety, and unintended behavioral responses. His 1975 study gave the effect its name.
Seat belt: A restraint that secures vehicle occupants to reduce injury during collisions. Studies have examined whether belt use changes drivers' behavior or injury outcomes.
Epidemiology: The study of the distribution and causes of health-related states in populations. Population studies test whether safety policies change injuries and deaths overall.
Moral hazard: Increased risk-taking when protection from consequences weakens incentives to avoid risk. Insurance-like safety protection can create incentives resembling the Peltzman effect.
The Effects of Automobile Safety Regulation: Sam Peltzman's 1975 study of vehicle safety regulation and traffic fatalities. It proposed that drivers partly offset safer cars through riskier driving.
Motorcycle helmet: Protective headgear designed to reduce head injury in motorcycle crashes. Helmet laws provide a prominent setting for testing behavioral offset claims.
Causal inference: Methods for estimating whether an intervention caused an observed outcome. It helps distinguish behavioral responses from other changes accompanying safety regulation.
Expected utility: A model of choice that ranks actions by their probabilities and the value of their outcomes. The effect can arise when perceived costs and benefits alter choices under risk.
National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act: A 1966 United States law establishing federal authority to set motor vehicle safety standards. The regulation it enabled formed the policy context for Peltzman's analysis.

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