Can random encounters be disabled?

They're very annoying and all right-thinking people would rather do away with them. (Especially after the second or third time losing a level 1 or 2 mage to a horde of bandits before you can even hit the pause button - not that the droves of monsters that individually walk up and ask you to kill them aren't annoying in their own way too.)

Does anybody know what controls the random encounter probability? Could it just be set to zero?