As a young man, I developed a profound distain for a neighborhood Corvette owner. Every week, he rolled his beautiful brand new C4 onto his driveway to hand wash the car and service the magnificent engine. When the washing ritual was done, the Vettophile slowly paraded the glorious machine though the neighborhood, and then carefully returned her to his garage. A waste of adrenaline stoking pleasure, to be sure, but the Vette owner’s behavior highlights an interesting, oft-overlooked aspect of automotive safety.

The new CEO of the company walked into the boardroom. The mood was grim. Recruited from another company in another industry just a few months previously, he carried bleak news. The automaker had just reported the largest third quarter loss in recent history. Their most profitable products, which had been flying off dealer lots, were dead in the water. Strikes at suppliers had crippled production of the few products that sold well. Market share was evaporating, and operations in Europe were drowning in red ink. Worst of all, recent downgrading of their bonds had hurt the profitability of their all-important finance unit, which had underwritten the car business for years. It was time for some bold moves.

Let’s try an experiment. I’ll give you a shiny new multi-blade, swivel head safety razor and an old-fashioned straight razor honed to a fine edge. You shave one side of your face (or one leg, depending on your shaving proclivities) with one razor and the other side with the other one. With which razor will you finish more quickly, and which one will you use very carefully and deliberately? According to a study from a Purdue University research team, the same thing applies to our driving habits: the safer we perceive our cars to be, the less carefully we tend to drive them.