This cover note comments on the following three TNO Institute for Perception (IZF) Reports: (1) "Risk compensation and the effect of an incentive: a laboratory study"; (2) "An experimental evaluation of safety incentive schemes"; and (3) "Seat belt wearing and driving behaviour: an empirical investigation". The first two studies are laboratory experiments. The third study, however, is a partly longitudinal road experiment. The laboratory experiments have made clear that people are able to observe and, more or less, to cancel large changes in small chances, according to risk compensation theories. The most important result of the road experiment is that habitual non-wearers are going to behave themselves more risky during the year after they had started to use their safety belts. Based on these studies, it is not possible to indicate what the risk compensation found will mean for the overall traffic safety. See also IRRD 819002, 824444 and 847470.
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