Before debating skills vs. equipment, please consider Risk Compensation

[Dtaine]

For example, if I am in my LDS and the inexperienced salesperson tells me that a Spare Air is obviously safer than no spare air, it would be nice if there is someone else to help me understand under what circumstances the spare air actually makes me safer.

If I am perceive that the Spare Air "solves my OOA problem," I may engage in riskier behaviour than if I didn't carry the Spare Air, making me actually less safe with it than without. The problem is not my having the choice of whether to carry the Spare Air, the problem is that my perceptions of risk and how it is affected by carrying a Spare Air are distorted.

Well, if someone thinks that 3 extra cubic feet of air allows them to do a more risky/dangerous dive then the educational system in their country has really failed them. Now, if the salesperson tells them that they can extend their NDL or go deeper because they have the spare-air, then that person would assume some liability in an accident. That's not an issue of personal responsibility.

If I use my 40 cf pony to extend a dive (using it as a stage) after expiring the air in my main tank, then I'm making a conscious decision to do so and am responsible for my actions. That's personal responsibility.

 

[Reg Braithwaite]

Based on this concept, just think how much safer we would all be if we just eliminated the alternate 2nd stage to make divers move towards safer behavior.

Maybe we should also be eliminating seat belts in cars to reduce accidents. Do you think eliminating body armor might reduce casualties in war?

Somehow I do not think you read what I wrote or the linked article. The theory does not say that people are less safe when we intervene by forcing them to use safety equipment, it merely predicts that they won't be as safe as we might naively expect because their perception of the safety afforded by their equipment will modify their behaviour.

But to answer your question as if you were asking it straight up, the theory predicts that if we move in the reverse direction by removing their perception of safety equipment, they will attempt to engage in safer behaviour to compensate. So they may end up being less safe, but not as much as we might expect given the afety we have removed.

 

[Slonda828]

In another thread, we have a small debate going on about whether to rely on a human buddy or a redundant air source to deal with OOG emergencies. I haven't seen anyone mention Risk Compensation in discussing the question, so here is a thumbnail sketch:

The idea is that people have a certain tolerance for risk, and they will attempt to obtain as much utility from a situation as possible while keeping their risk within "acceptable" limits. Note that we are talking about their perception of risk and utility.

This means that if you "intervene" in an activity by making it safer, people will route around your intervention by acting more recklessly. The most famous example is anti-lock brakes: although cars with anti-lock brakes are statistically safer than cars without, the effect is much, much more modest than predicted by the technology. Supporters of the theory suggest that people drive more recklessly and/or drive vehicles that are harder to control given ABS to save them.

So...

Let's take a large number of diving teams of roughly equivalent experience doing roughly similar dive profiles, say PADI AOW divers with 25-75 dives each doing NDL OW dives. They will behave similarly to each other, each team will try to have as much fun as possible while staying within their perception of acceptable risk.

Now we give some teams pony bottles. We may be tempted to think that the teams with pony bottles are much safer than the teams without. And they may be safer. But the theory tells us that those teams will behave in riskier ways to try to maximize their enjoyment, perhaps by straying further away from their buddies, perhaps by checking their SPGs less often, perhaps by turning their dives much later because "they have plenty of air in reserve."

In each case they are trying to trade their additional safety for fun.

They may still be safer than the divers without pony bottles. But the theory cautions us that we should be conservative when trying to decide whether safety devices actually make us safer and if so by how much. In theory they do. In practice, they may not, or not as much as we think.

Lest you think I am arguing against safety devices, Risk Compensation makes prediction about skills as well. Let's say we take a diver and put them though GUE Fundamentals. They are now much safer on recreational dives than they were before their course.

Risk Compensation suggests they will use their new-found skills to dive in more dangerous environments like deco dives, wrecks and caves, trading the increased safety provided by their skills for increased utility. Again, the theory simply predicts that people have a tolerance for risk and will compensate for perceived safety by trying to extract more utility.

My God, this is educated, emprical, and well spoken....and on scubaboard! (I know, I'm as guilty as anyone ) I experienced this personally during my 15 month vacation to Iraq. We would go on patrol, get blown up, get issued vehicles with more armor, and go on exponentially more patrols. Granted in this case it was my commander's tolerance for risk (for ME) going up, and not my own, but it is still applicable

This is one of the reasons that I try to dive without an octopus often in open water dives when I am allowed by standards to do so and without a BC provided that my wetsuit is dense enough. I find that I stay closer to my buddy, rehearse buddy breathing, and pay attention to my gas a lot more when I don't have the ubiquitous yellow hose dangling out in the slipstream or the airbag hanging off of my back.

Reg, it would be interesting to see correlative data relating to diver fatalities before the octopus (which came out in 1973 for most companies including Aqualung) and the BC (early 70's) and after. I wonder if your theory would support or oppose increased diver safety as a function of these new pieces of equipment.

 

[seaducer]

I don't really agree with that. Technical dive training and cave training has made me a much more proficient open water diver, but that was never the intent in spending bunches of money on safer and more redundant technical dive equipment and training.

That is a horse of a different color. In your case you purchased equipment and sought training to facilitate a different type of diving.
I disagree with Reg's Fundies example, also. In the case of Fundies, most people who take that class do so because it is a gateway to the training they need to tec or cave dive.


I was reffering to the examples Reg mentioned:
ABS brakes, pony bottle/Spare Air, etc.

Those safety devices are designed to assist with issues you might face by behaving responsibly, in the case of ABS, help you stop safer, provided you drive safely to begin with. They are not for allowing you to drive faster on snowy roads.

The purpose of a pony bottle is not allow the owner to forget their protocols, ignore their spg, and dive until they are OOA, switch to the pony and ascend.

I think most divers and drivers know this. The ones who act more recklessly under the mistaken idea that the devices are for that purpose, well, Darwin Awards just wouldn't be the same without them. And yeah, these are the people who then sue when their ignorance gets them hurt.

 

[Gombessa]

Based on this concept, just think how much safer we would all be if we just eliminated the alternate 2nd stage to make divers move towards safer behavior.

I think the OP's premise is that the benefits are *reduced* rather than canceled out wholesale. So while you would think that airbags reduce injury by 90% based on statistics, it turns out they only reduce injury by 50%, even given riskier behavior (to pull numbers out of the air). If it were the case that improvements made things significantly worse, then yeah there'd be an argument for going back to no SPG and a j-valve.

 

[Reg Braithwaite]

liability... personal responsibility...

If this hasn't already been invented, I hereby propose SB's Corollary to Godwin's Law: As the length of a thread about diving increases, the probability of comparing the thread topic to personal responsibility approaches one.

 

[Slonda828]

Based on this concept, just think how much safer we would all be if we just eliminated the alternate 2nd stage to make divers move towards safer behavior.

Maybe we should also be eliminating seat belts in cars to reduce accidents. Do you think eliminating body armor might reduce casualties in war?

The theory sounds reasonable but we should be careful how it is applied. Our focus should be on risk management (Risk management - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) with an understanding of the theory of risk compensation. The risk management process requires an accurate understanding of the risks involved in an activity and of the effectiveness of various potential safety measures. Underestimating risks or overestimating the effectiveness of safety measures is the danger we must guard against.

I'll never understand the diver who will not dive solo but is pleased as punch with some unknown pickup buddy.

I can attest to the body armor part myself. I had to go on a few missions where we had to do night infiltrations on foot and we had to be quiet (which is impossible in 75 pounds of nylon and kevlar). We used to remove our groin, neck, throat, shoulder, and side ballistic protection to do this. I swear with God as my witness that I was infinitely more scared in those situations then I was when I had all my gear on. You know what though? I sure as hell watched my sector of fire a lot more, and my buddy's too. So from a theoretical point of view our friend Reg is quite right, at least in some regards.

I think we must differentiate bewtween internal and external risks on this though. If I wear less safety equipment, I may take less risks, but that doesn't mean that external risks go down. For example, if I dive without an octo, I may pay more attention to where my buddy is, but if my second stage magically falls apart then the chances of me drowning are increased because I do not have an octo. So I think for the purposes of our friendly scholarly debate here, we need to make distinctions on the forces driving the risk.

 

[Dtaine]

If this hasn't already been invented, I hereby propose SB's Corollary to Godwin's Law: As the length of a thread about diving increases, the probability of comparing the thread topic to personal responsibility approaches one.

Discussing personal responsibility is perfectly relevant when discussing risk compensation.

 

[seaducer]

But to answer your question as if you were asking it straight up, the theory predicts that if we move in the reverse direction by removing their perception of safety equipment, they will attempt to engage in safer behaviour to compensate. So they may end up being less safe, but not as much as we might expect given the afety we have removed.

There were non-scientific studies done in the UK with regards to bicyclists on the roads. One guy would ride with traffic without a helmet and observe how much room drivers afforded him when passing. He then rode the same roads with a helmet and found that drivers passed much closer. The theory being that cyclists who wear helmets are either less vulnerable, have better skill, or both.

He also found wearing femine colors and a wig that he was given more space.

 

[Reg Braithwaite]

There were non-scientific studies done in the UK with regards to bicyclists on the roads... He also found wearing femine colors and a wig that he was given more space.

In the UK? I can see the conversation in the motorcar now:

Hey! Is that John Cleese?

You're daft! Graham Chapman, surely.

Pair of old farts you are. It's Stephen Fry.

(car slows down, three necks crane and look).

Who was that blighter?