Description
Book SynopsisRisk compensation postulates that everyone has a "risk thermostat" and that safety measures that do not affect the setting of the thermostat will be circumvented by behaviour that re-establishes the level of risk with which people were originally comfortable. It explains why, for example, motorists drive faster after a bend in the road is straightened. Cultural theory explains risk-taking behaviour by the operation of cultural filters. It postulates that behaviour is governed by the probable costs and benefits of alternative courses of action which are perceived through filters formed from all the previous incidents and associations in the risk-taker's life.; "Risk" should be of interest to many readers throughout the social sciences and in the world of industry, business, engineering, finance and public administration, since it deals with a fundamental part of human behaviour that has enormous financial and economic implications.
Trade Review"Extremely counterintuitive...stimulating and rewarding." Nature
"This book is to make one pause and take stock. He (the author) has a wonderfully irreverant style, dissecting phony argument and phoney statistics with an enviable ease, humour and self-deprecation." Transactions of the IBG
"Having read it, none of us should ever again look at transport issues in the same way...this is why his (the author's) book deserves to be read, not just by geographers but by the whole community of transport planners and policy makers." Journal of Transport Geography
Table of ContentsChapter 01 Risk: An Introduction; Chapter 02 Risk and the Royal Society; Chapter 03 Patterns in Uncertainty; Chapter 04 Error, Chance and Culture; Chapter 05 Measuring Risk; Chapter 06 Monetizing Risk; Chapter 07 Road Safety 1: Seat Belts; Chapter 08 Road Safety 2: More Filtering; Chapter 09 A Large Risk: The Greenhouse Effect; Chapter 10 The Risk Society; Chapter 11 Can We Manage Risk Better?;
