Road accidents are reasonably predictable from a knowledge of traffic behaviour, although individual accident involvement is far less predictable. How do individuals perceive the relationship between their own involvement and objective accident risk? This question is explored in relation to Danish case studies of drivers' behaviour at traffic lights and different categories of pedestrians' ‘jay-walking’. On this evidence, it seems unlikely that road users perceive accidents as random negative outcomes of everyday risk taking. Thus it also appears improbable that overall traffic accident risk in any society is a major function of deliberate risk taking by its individual road users.