Behavioural adaptation to airbags and antilock brakes

As part of a research program on risk compensation to traffic safety measures, taxi drivers’ behavioural adaptation to airbag and antilock braking system (ABS) was investigated. On-road unobtrusive measurements of speed, headway, lane occupancy, and variability of lateral position were performed on 213 taxis. The behavioural data were matched to subsequently collected questionnaire information. Taxis with ABS had significantly shorter time headways than taxis without ABS, whereas no such relationship was found for airbag. This is in accordance with the hypothesis that risk compensation is more likely with accident-reducing measures than with injury-reducing measures.