DISSENT The risk compensation theory and bicycle helmets

Thompsons found evidence that if you bang your head the consequences will be less severe if you are wearing a protective helmet.1 Based on this review they recommend that cyclists should be “encouraged ” to wear helmets. The form of encouragement that they favour is compulsion. We accept the principal finding of their review—that protective helmets protect in the event of an accident—but not the policy conclu-sions that they derive from it. The issue that divides us is risk compensation—does the behaviour of cyclists change as a consequence of wearing a helmet in ways that oVset the pro-tective benefit of helmets in accidents? Afte