When people feel safe, they tend to take risks not taken previously. When you learn to ride a bicycle without a helmet, as I did, it only takes a couple spills and you learn there are things and situations to be avoided. If you're wearing a helmet, it removes the consequences and you don't learn.
It is already known that since air-bags, people push the limits driving farther than they did before. Why? With the air bag, they are confident they won't die.
I have also noticed this with hikers and hunters and snowmachiners, etc.
They have their rescue beacons, or whatever, and go places and do things they would not have attempted before because they know that rescue is a 9-1-1 call away. I wouldn't mind so much (as a taxpayer funding these rescues), but they tend to leave common sense behind.