• Helmet is not for me!
• I was driving just in my locality!
• No one wears it in our place!
• Helmet will not make me immortal!
• I was pillion riding and not driving.
• Females and children are not required to wear one!
• Repair the roads first before enforcing laws on individuals.
• Helmet doesn’t look cool on me.
• My religion prohibits use of helmet.
There are many more excuses for not using a helmet while riding two-wheeler.
I wonder why this even has to be enforced. No one is forced to wear warm clothing’s in winters.
No one needs to be stopped to stay away from fire or live wire.
We don’t need a law to protect us from injury.
Its ironical that we happily wear helmet while cricketing but not cool while driving.
Now just read and think for a moment
• 35% of all road accidents involve two wheelers*
• About 100 people lose their lives everyday just because of driving without a crash helmet. That puts it 4 lives every hour
• 45% of these deaths are of pillion riders and not the drivers
• A helmet increases the chances of survival by at least 42%
Next time when you say, Why should I wear helmet? Please realize that a million death may be a statistic, but a single death of a loved one is a tragedy.
When a life is lost due to head injury, whole family gets shattered. Most of the victims are the breadwinners of their families.
Even if they survive, severe head injuries, the resultant neurological deficits may be so severe to cause permanent disabilities.
The brain is a very delicate and soft organ and is well protected in the bony skull. When the head strikes a hard surface, the bony skull may break and cause serious damage to the brain. It can lead to death, coma or paralysis.
As a neurosurgeon, I see such tragedies daily in my practice. I see young boys and girls and men and women loosing precious lives.
The more painful is the fact that many of these lives could have been saved by a simple helmet.
Even if we see the impact of these trauma cases as a country, it effects the working younger manpower. This has a serious impact on the society as a whole.
So, when you say “Why should I wear helmet?” just look at these points ..
• Helmet certainly don’t make immortal but it significantly improves the chances of survival in case of impact.
• Injury can occur even on a neighborhood road so this excuse is baseless
• Females and children have equally precious lives
• Helmet is for personal safety and is a must
• If the roads are not good, it makes the use of helmet mandatory
• Even pillion riders have equal chances of injury so this excuse also has no merit
We have a habit of finding excuses. In any other country, we would follow all laws without questioning or cribbing.
We as a population should understand our duty towards the law and should not take our democratic rights for granted.
As a doctor, I humbly request you all to use a good quality helmet whenever riding a two-wheeler and be impeccable towards traffic laws.
