I’ve long been fascinated by the role of safety devices and greater risk taking.

Study after study has shown that if people normally act a “danger level of 2”, they’ll notch up their danger level to “danger level of 3” or “danger level of 3 1/2” if a safety device is designed to keep the device safe up to a “danger level of 4”.

This obviously undercuts many of the benefits of the safety device, when increased safety margins are just used to promote more dangerous behavior. Often redundancy encourages bad practices, even if it’s designed to increase safety. 

 … Do take a look at the Normal Accidents article I just posted.