Skip to main content

Helmets , Bikes and Cops

Image
By
Shubham, a 17 year old student of Modern School and son of our colleague, died in a two wheelr accident last week, sending shock waves, sorrow and remorse in our hearts yet again.
We all know that two-wheelers are the backbone of the middle class especially of its youth. With 45 lac new two wheelers hitting Indian roads every year and 12000 new registrations every day accidents are bound to rise. The number of precious young lives being lost is however disproportionaly high with 115,000 deaths every year in Delhi alone.
The recurring and haunting theme that runs through all these tragedies is that they were not wearing helmets while riding their two wheelers.
Why then do riders not wear helmets? Road research instistute cite these as the common excuses:
1.         “I am a good driver. It cant happen to me”
2.         “There are no cops on this route at this time”
3.          “I am going a very short distance”
4.          “Where do I keep it?”
5.          “It is so hot and uncomfortable”
6.          “Helmets are a useless expenditure”
7.          “I belive in destiny. Helmet can’t change that”
That helmets protect lives in case of two wheeler accidents has been proven beyound doubt. Several studies have shown that wearing a helmet reduces the fatality rate (chances of dying) from accidents by as much as 50-80%. Injury to the head and the brain is the commonest cause of death  which the helmet cushions and protects.
History too supports the use of helmets. When helmet legislation was relaxed in UK in 1979, there was a significant spurt in deaths from two wheeler accidents, necessitating a quick re-implementation. On the other hand strict enforcement in California resulted in saving of $ 35 miilion from hospital costs.
Cops indeed have a vital role to play. Enforcing helmet legislation is of proven value in reducing deaths. Paradoxically, the prime reason why young Indian riders wear helmets, when they do, is to escape being caught by cops; hence they often buy cheap substandard helmets, wear them selectively at crossings where cops are spotted, and take them off soon after having outsmarted them.
Parents need to be a lot stricter with their children too. If caught by the cops for defaulting, it does not help to support their kids and fight with the cops. It might bring their children to harm tomorrow.
Through HOPE Initiative (www.hope.org.in) we have been striving for the last 5 years to stress the benefit of wearing helmets, among students. School authorities have been trying their best too. And yet a road traffic accident continues to occur every 7 minutes in India, and we continue to loose young and promising lives. Parents, employers, academic administration and the traffic police need to join hands to prevent this wasteful and tragic loss of young lives.
As published in HT City (Hindustan Times) dated 18 july ,2010.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Food Fads in Liver Disorders

By
In an attempt at trying to do well to those they love, spouses and parents often enforce diets on patients of liver diseases that often turn out to be detrimental. The commonest food fad is pale insipid boiled cabbage being doled out to nauseous patients suffering from hepatitis that makes them puke even more.  The liver, in a way, is a buzzing manufacturing unit that requires lots of energy to keep its multiple functions going. And it derives all this from the food we eat. During disease, such as during an attack of jaundice, when many of the liver cells get killed, the liver attemptsdamage control by trying to regenerate quickly. For its cells to multiply however, it requires a generous supply of energy that comes from carbohydrates, and protein, the building block for its cells and tissues. Boiled green vegetables unfortunately have neither of these. Hence the situation often progresses to that of a starved liver unable to recuperate due to cut-off food supply.
2 comments
Read more

Bad Dreams, Disturbed Sleep

By
  A good night’s sleep, so essential to rest your body and mind, and restore ‘energy” and vitality, is becoming a casualty for many these days. Last week a 58 year old lady complained that she woke up with a startle in the middle of the night dreaming of “drugs”, something she had never been exposed to all her life. Another reported a nightmare in which he felt someone was “strangulating” him by tightening something around his neck, till he woke up feeling choked! Yet another reported dreaming that he was in an ICU of a hospital with PPE draped figures surrounding his bed while he was being prepared to be hooked to a ventilator. Bad dreams can be disturbing to say the least. One wakes up with a startle or in sweat, feeling disturbed and uneasy, and feeling drained. The mood in the morning is usually uneasy and snappy. Creative thinking has usually gone for a toss…postponed to yet another day when one feels more cheerful and positive.   Several factors could be contributing to “
1 comment
Read more

The Doctor’s Dress

By
The familiar white coat worn by physicians as their distinctive dress for over 100 years, has started generating  murmurs  of controversy. It is not uncommon to find the blood pressure to be higher when measured by a white-coat-wearing-doctor in the hospital or clinic than the readings obtained at home by relatives.  This is due to the anxiety that the white coat and the hospital setting evokes in patients, and has been termed “White Coat Hypertension”. Mature clinicians often routinely subtract a few points from these measurements when entering records in case charts or calculating the dose of anti-hypertensive medications to be prescribed. The white coat scares children too.  Kids often express their dislike for this dress by crying and screaming and by denying access to their bellies or chest for examination by paediatricians in this attire. Many pediatricians across the world have folded up their white coats and taken to informal colourful dressing to get closer to thei
2 comments
Read more