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The net impact of interventions that prevent or reduce the associated costs of risky behaviors are not always positive. In some cases, protection measures can lead people to “forget to be afraid”, resulting in higher risk taking and negative net results. In the current research, we focus on safety measures (such as safety helmets and seatbelt legislation) to clarify the conditions that drive this phenomenon. Using a controlled laboratory experiment, we found that protecting people from a rare disastrous event was effective and did not backfire. Conversely, preventing frequent moderate losses from risk taking induced higher risk taking rates, impairing participants’ earnings. We discuss the implications for terror networks and organized crime.

The current study was designed to clarify the conditions under which safety enhancing interventions are likely to backfire. The research was motivated by a recent increase in road fatality rates in the USA–although road death rates were in a steady decline for decades, since 2011 this trend has changed and death rates have been slowly climbing (NHTSA, 2017).