I'm all for making seat belts mandatory, but our current seat belt
rule has an amusing escape hatch: you are not required to wear seat
belts if your car never had them.
Second, what's to guarantee that the seat belts that come in our cars
are actually properly designed and will not choke you to death in
event of an accident? Particularly in the case of earlier cars that
were the first generation to have seat belts? Do seat belts come with
an ISI or equivalent certification like helmets do? (I ask this
because someone raised it to me once -- I have no idea what sort of
testing is done.)
Regarding helmets again. This is diverting from my stand, but I
suppose you realise people will raise a stink about what affects them
right now, not about some vague, distant possibility. If Bangalore's
accident fatality rate was 300 in 2005 (going by a sign posted near
the railway station), that's 300 per six million (conservative
population estimate), or 0.005% chance it will be you this year. (The
figure's likely way off since it should be estimated against count of
two-wheeler riders, but I don't have that number.) Being forced to
wear a helmet, OTOH, inconveniences everyone who uses a bike.
If it's optional for pillion riders, which is the only practical
approach, then in event of an accident you're still going to have one
fatality, if not two. AFAIK, this government's not trying to cut down
on cost to taxpayer for trauma care and possibly doesn't even have
estimates for how much they'll save with this rule -- there are too
many leaks in the flow of public money for such an estimate to have
any meaning.
So is this just a system of governance by knee-jerk reaction?
Somebody's screaming that too many bodies are being rolled into
mortuaries, so they decide to take action by enforcing helmets. The
public revolts saying their civil liberties are being violated for no
benefit in return, and the rule's called off. Two years later,
someone else screams about the bodies and the rule's back.
Surely we deserve better than this?
We're not even counting the traffic cop's delightful tool of
selective enforcement. Practically none of our traffic rules are ever
enforced, whether it's seat belts, cell phones (last I heard, you
have to switch off your phone when driving -- even handsfree is
illegal), speed limits or red lights. *Everyone* violates the rules,
even the cops themselves. And then one day, one chap does what
everyone around him expects to do, gets caught and fined, and then on
lives in *fear*, because he no longer knows what's acceptable and
what's not, and living strictly by the rules is clearly discouraged
by the behaviour of others.
Just this afternoon Cheeni was telling me about how yesterday a *cop*
said he could park along a line of cars, right by a no parking sign.
He did as he was told and an hour later the same bunch of cops were
happily issuing everyone tickets. In Koramangala, I saw this happen
for several months on end. Every hour a truck would arrive to pick up
vehicles parked across the Shiv Sagar restaurant (down the road from
Raheja Arcade). There was no No Parking sign there. No sign
whatsoever. Every hour someone would park there to go to the
restaurant and come back to find his vehicle seized. At least three
bikes each time. The crime? Not knowing better. Surely the cops could
have erected a No Parking sign there and be done with it? Is it any
surprise they had a vested interest in not doing so?
Do you really want to give them another weapon in their arsenal for
instilling fear?
~j
On 31-Jul-06, at 2:33 PM, Deepa Mohan wrote:
hmm....I do see your points, and appreciate that they are
valid...but the rub is that without the law, no one will wear
helmets..and accidents have a way of happening when you least
expect them to. I have seen horrific head injuries even when the
rider was going very slowly, because the rider loses his balance
and more often than not, head injuries result.
Your logic could apply to wearing seat belts too....why enforce
that? I still feel, wearing of helmets should be mandatory for
drivers, and strongly advocated for pillion riders. For all the
reasons you have given, and more, pillion-rider helmets cannot be
mandatory, I agree.
Well...what I say is, let the Govt decide one way or the other,
without all this shilly-shallying.
Deepa.
On 7/31/06, Kiran Jonnalagadda <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: On 30-
Jul-06, at 12:31 PM, Deepa Mohan wrote:
> and it would be pertinent at this juncture to mention that the
> Karnataka Govt has AGAIN deferred the rule on helmets. The
> Karnataka powers-that-be don't need helmets, they are only required
> when there are brains to protect.
At risk of being dismissed a troll, I'd like to state that IMHO, this
is a good thing. The helmet rule introduces more problems than it
solves. Helmets should be optional. For the record, I always wear one.
Let's look at the problems it introduces:
1. Pillion riders. I occasionally give rides to friends or strangers
on the road. Under this rule, my options are:
1a. Always carry a spare helmet. That is, the government burdens me
because I'm trying to be friendly to society.
1b. Expect anyone who wants a ride to carry a helmet. I'd love to see
how the government expects this to happen.
1c. Don't give rides. Be selfish. You know those people standing by
the roadside late at night, hoping you'll give them a ride, because
there's no public transport available? Screw them. After all, the
government's decided to shaft them doubly, first by taking their tax
money and not providing public transport that works, and now by
demanding someone produce a spare helmet if the fellow's going to get
a ride. If even the government doesn't care, why should you?
2. Motorcycle rickshaws, aka "pilots". We don't have them in
Bangalore, but they're common in Goa. They're cheaper than
autorickshaws and often more convenient. Now the fellow requires you
to wear his spare helmet, and who knows what head it sat on before
and what it took away? Hair oil, head lice, dandruff? I prefer wind
in my hair, please.
3. Short rides. I have a helmet lock on the bike, but prefer to keep
the helmet indoors because dust collects on the visor and leaves
scratches. This means when going out for a very short ride, under
half a kilometre, for example, I have to remember to pick up the
helmet on the way out. Sometimes I don't, and then I have the option
of spending an equal amount of time getting to the destination or
going back in for the helmet. I'll not be doing over 30 kmph anyway
on a quiet residential lane, but who's going to tell that to the
overzealous cop at the corner who's got a quota to finish?
Finally, even if making it mandatory for front riders and optional
for pillion, what's the point? Why go only halfway? Why not stop
being a nanny state and treat *licensed* drivers like adults who can
think for themselves?
--
Kiran Jonnalagadda
http://jace.seacrow.com/
--
Kiran Jonnalagadda
http://jace.seacrow.com/
