Cracked.com has an entertaining and enlightening report on five popular safety measures that don’t make you any safer.
It’s so hard to think logically about safety. We figure that any time our health or the safety of our children is at stake, it’s better safe than sorry. Our safety is too important for logic, damn it!
- Airport Security
- Bike Helmets and Anti-Lock Brakes
- Sun Screen
- Breast Cancer Self-Examination
- Gated Communities
2 thoughts on “5 Popular Safety Measures That Don’t Make You Any Safer | Cracked.com”
Some older drivers are so used to pumping their breaks that they do it in cars with anti-lock breaks whether or not they know they shouldn’t.
Interesting article, but I take issue with logic of the author on some points. For example, to refute the dozens or hundreds of studies done regarding bike helmets, he cherry picks one study done in Australia and one done in Bath. And for ABS, he cites one study that looks only at one modality (deaths in single-car accidents) and then proceeds to tell us that ABS doesn’t help safety.
This then begs the question of how much time and money have been saved by automotive safety equipment. If we were all still driving Daimler’s three wheel wagon with original safety equipment and contemporary engines, we’d best be going only 15MPH…
Interesting opinion, but on those two examples, I don’t buy it.
OTOH, I do agree with Bruce Schneier’s assessment regarding the absurd waste incurred by the airport circus sideshow called “security”, as I’m familiar with his work, which is quite far-ranging.