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Old 01-29-12, 08:12 AM
  #1310  
njkayaker
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Originally Posted by hagen2456
It would make a lot of sense to look inte which kind of cyclists might "risk compensate" and which not. My uneducated guess is that a study might show that very carefull and cautious riders will tend to wear helmets - so they'll have fewer accidents, helmets or not. On the other hand, if you go mountain biking, you may easily be the type who'll take a few chances more with a helmet on.

How this might influence the statistics I can't say.
This is an important point. We aren't, though, talking about mountain bikers.

The people who bring up "risk compensation" as a criticism are assuming that the effect you suppose might only apply to mountain bikers applies to road cyclists generally.
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