THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, December 27, 1994 TAG: 9412270062
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Short : 48 lines
Drivers whose cars have air bags may cause more crashes than drivers without them because the added protection emboldens them to take risks, an upcoming study suggests.
A study of 206 fatal Virginia crashes in 1993 concludes that drivers with air bags were disproportionately responsible for multi-car accidents and placed their own passengers at greater risk than did other drivers.
The study by Virginia Commonwealth University economists George Hoffer, Edward Millner and Steven Peterson will be published next fall in the Journal of Law and Economics.
``What it suggests is that air bag drivers are driving in such a manner as to offset the effectiveness of the air bag,'' said Hoffer, who is also a transportation expert. ``They think technology will bail them out.''
He said the study ``is not a diatribe against air bags. Air bags are good. air bag.''
Hoffer said the study analyzed accidents involving 1990-1993 models, 43 percent of which contain air bags. The study was based on data from the Department of Motor Vehicles.
In fatal crashes involving an air bag-equipped car and one with no air bag, the driver of the air bag-equipped car was responsible 73 percent of the time, Hoffer said. The probability of arriving at that figure at random is less than 1 percent, he said.
Of 13 single-car accidents in which passengers but not the driver died, nine of the drivers had air bags.
At the center of the study is a theory of ``offsetting behavior'' pioneered 20 years ago by a University of Chicago professor named Sam Peltzman. The theory suggests people adapt to safety improvements by taking more chances. Peltzman edits the journal in which the study will appear.
Kim Hazelbaker, senior vice president for Highway Loss Data Institute in Arlington County, said she hasn't seen the study, but she rejects the offsetting behavior theory.
``We find no credibility in that argument. . . . Safety research from all over the world has shown that that's not the fact,'' she said. by CNB