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FiftyTwo comments on Group rationality diary, 6/25/12 - Less Wrong
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Not sure how rational this was, but yesterday on a crowded bus I discovered the seat I initially was in didn't have a functioning seatbelt. My initial thought was "chances of a collision are very low, it would be irrational to spend effort/time/social awkwardness moving." Then I considered how low the chances actually were based on my experience. I had taken this bus route approximately 50 times without any accident, so were an accident to happen that day it would mean it was a 1/50 chance of accident. So was I willing to take a 1/50 chance of serious injury or death? I moved.
Admittedly the logic doesn't quite hold together there, but it was a visceral enough thought experiment to get me over my unwillingness to move.
People in general don't wear seatbelts in buses. I wonder why that is. I'd buy that buses are actually a lot less likely to get into accidents that harm the occupants because they are big and professionally driven along familiar routes.
I've never seen seatbelts on a bus before (I've lived in Seattle, San Jose, and Portland on the west coast of the US, and visited Minneapolis, MN and Sydney, NSW, Australia. I also used to ride Greyhound monthly)
Given the presumed liability to all these bus networks for failing to include seatbelts if they actually helped, I have to assume that people far more knowledgeable than me have concluded the risk is minimal.
Having seen a truck smash in to a bus at ~20 MPH: The bus doorframe bent. The truck's front was about a foot shorter. The bus, suffice to say, won that confrontation. I was near the front and didn't realize we'd actually been hit for a few seconds...
The worst I've ever had happen on a bus was a sudden stop while walking to the back, which threw me to the floor (I wasn't holding on to anything, and now I make a point of generally grabbing handholds instead)
So, my anecdotal evidence lines up with the assumptions of whoever skipped installing seatbelts in the first place :)
(In fairness, they're probably far more statistical about the value of my life, whereas I'm biased because it's mine. But I try hard to accept statistical risks to my life, because I find my happiness is vastly higher when I'm taking trivial risks like this :))
I imagine the size of buses makes collisions less of a hazard for their passengers, through a combination of limited maximum speed and conservation of momentum.