On Tuesday, August 5, 2014 3:37:55 AM UTC-4, wrote:

The cycling helmets (or car seatbelts/airbags) and human nature experiences are often raised in discussions about the supposed risk of complacency gliding with FLARM. There are two ways in which these are invalid comparisons:

The first difference is that on the roads it is very unlikely that "near miss" accidents will previously have gone unnoticed before the introduction of the safety gear whereas when gliding with FLARM most comment that they are amazed at the number of near misses that they have been alerted to that they must have been missing pre-FLARM. Similar to what Ramy is reporting, the aspect of human nature that seems to kick in with most glider pilots using FLARM is the bit that says "This is a lot more risky than I had realised - I had better improve my look-out"

There also is another huge conceptual difference - unlike passive safety measures on the road, FLARM is an active communication system. It pretty soon dawns on pilots that FLARM use results not only in alarms one receives but also alarms one gives to others. If I am getting a lot of alerts it means that I am giving alerts to a lot of others. Any pilot with half a brain then starts to think "not only should I look out better, I should also change how I fly with respect to avoiding giving FLARM alerts to other pilots" i.e. FLARM etiquette. (This is is often reinforced by WTF! radio calls).


Adding to your list of why PFLARM and Helmets are different:
Helmets are intended to mitigate the effect of spills and collisions, whereas PFLARM is intended to prevent mid-airs. There are many accident profiles where the helmet does not do enough to mitigate injury, but a mid-air averted is a mid-air averted.

Just as motorists are more careful around cyclists that are not wearing helmets (and less careful near those wearing helmets), the question is whether the change in pilot behavior with PFLARM is, looking at the whole picture, more or less safe. The answer to that is going to be clearer in situations where all pilots have PFLARM, and less clear where only some pilots have PFLARM.

In the context where only some pilots have PFLARM, I'd fly as if no pilots had PFLARM.

In a galaxy far far away where all pilots have PFLARM, pilots are going to be less vigilant when they expect that they are far far away from other gliders (same as PFLARMless pilots are sometime less vigilant here on Earth). In that case, having PFLARM is not going to make pilots even less vigilant, but it will reduce the risk of a midair where and when one is least expected.