I like to tell people that I prefer taxis where the driver is not wearing a seatbelt. This mostly confuses people – at least non-economists – because the general perception is that people who do not wear seatbelts are more “irresponsible”.
However, if you know about the so-called Peltzman effect you would not be surprised by my preference of “irresponsible” taxi drivers. The Peltzman effect is named after Chicago economist Sam Peltzman.
In a very controversial article –“The Effects of Automobile Safety Regulation” – in the Journal of Political Economy from 1975 Peltzman showed that contrary to what should have expected the introduction of seat belt laws in the US did not reduce the total number death accidents in traffic.
Here Russ Robert (in a blog post from 2006) explains Peltzman’s results:
“Peltzman argued that mandatory safety devices such as seat belts reduced the probability of harm to the…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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