Team-BHP - Pune Citizens form committee to oppose mandatory helmet rule

Having seen enough deaths and serious injuries including permanent paralysis caused by bike & even car accidents I cannot help be appalled by the attitude of these people.

It reminds me of that railway accident in Punjab during Dassera. No matter how much you try and tell our people that it is not safe to do something or to protect their own lives and property they will never heed good advice. To a significant portion of the Indian public safety is NOT important & convenience trumps everything else. :Frustrati

It may sound heartless but we should let Darwin's theory run its course and better the gene pool by erasing such imbeciles from the face of the Earth.

I am not against any community, religion, or sect.

If I remember correctly, around a decade ago (may be more) when honorable court mandated the use of helmet for women two wheeler drivers, Sikh community had protested against the verdict stating it was against their religion. What? Yeah! And then came the stay (which lasted almost a full decade) and no woman wore the helmet (irrespective of the religion) till the next ruling which came a few months ago where court stated that only turbaned Sikh women to be given the exemption and rest all women will be required to wear helmet. I was impressed with the court's (Punjab & Haryana High Court) verdict. Huge hue and cry followed.

Enter politics. Within a day or two when Chandigarh police started challening women without helmet, former Punjab CM Prakash Singh Badal met Home Minister Rajnath Singh apprising of the situation who then instructed the police not to challan Sikh women to which police responded that there is no way they can differentiate between Sikh and non-Sikh women. Result? We are back to square one. Women are now happy again as their hair don't get messed up, make up doesn't goes off and so-called torch-bearers of religion have successfully fought for the safety (or may be not) of their women.

I may now sound too insensitive but I believe that in such cases where driver or co-passenger deliberately refuse to take precaution/safety and sustain head injury or even die due to it, no case should be registered and no compensation of any sort should be given.

Mods. Please feel free to take it off, if the post goes against any or all Team-Bhp guidelines.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pjbiju (Post 4498648)

Recently my company which is in Balewadi has also made it mandatory for two wheeler riders to be wearing helmets to enter the company premises.

Even Commerzone IT park makes it compulsory for employees if they want to enter the parking. So most of the heroes put a lowest quality helmet on handlebar or grab rail, and put it up only at the gate. IQ is not a requirement for riding a two wheeler.

I agree with the suggestion that insurance has to be reconsidered for accidents without helmet. In fact I remember there was a case from Mulund IIRC when upon the death of a motorcyclist, courts had cut the insurance amount in half because he was not wearing helmet.

What amazes me is that how come this group of old people call themselves 'Pune Citizens have done so and so'. They are not elected representative of anyone.

Also, with so many motorcycling groups, why no group is coming in support of this rule, saying 'Pune Motorcyclists are supporting this rule'?

Quote:

Originally Posted by ani_meher (Post 4499356)

Also, with so many motorcycling groups, why no group is coming in support of this rule, saying 'Pune Motorcyclists are supporting this rule'?

Because there is no cure for fools. No point arguing with people who don't have similar relationship with reality as rest of us. Whenever I see this kind of stupidity, I end up watching this famous scene from the movie Yojimbo by Akira Kurosawa, which was remade as Fistful of Dollars in English. It calms me down.

Govt. Should scrap the helmet an seat belt rule, instead make Insurance or compensation null and void for folks not using appropriate safety measures.

Why save people who dont care about their own life, its not like we have a scarcity of people.

On top of that Traffic cops waste too much time pulling over people for seatbelts and helmets, instead, they can be deployed to manage congestions and bottlenecks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by StepUP! (Post 4499031)

I don't know if you have come across below mentioned 'dudes' in your cities. In Pune you see;

Moron who wears his helmet on his fore arm
Nincompoop who ties 3-4 handkerchiefs on his face but won't wear helmet
Imbecile who wears his full face helmet on skull pointing skywards
Halfwit who wears hard hat (worn by construction worker) and calls it helmet
Blockhead who carries his helmet locked to grab handle or leg guard or in pillion's hands

All the aforementioned specimens can be found pan India lol:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samurai (Post 4499381)

there is no cure for fools.

Turns out, in this case there just might one cure and appears to me people there are fighting for the rights to that cure - riding without helmet.

How patients for some conditions are prescribed very long term medicine use (BP, Cholesterol, some forms of TB etc..)? Riding without helmet would be one such medicine/cure that'll eventually (year or two) rid them of any need for helmet at all.

I think I remember seeing some messages like "riding moves the soul"...that could literally be the case here.

Rednecks exist everywhere. There are a lot of opportunistic people around looking to make an issue out of nothing and get popular in the process. This seems to be more of that than any other massively popular sentiment.

While in my opinion enforcing the helmet rule is a good move, they should look at also enforcing road surface and road planning effectively. Poor infrastructure along with overspeeding and lane changes causes most accidents.
Helmets are only preventive. Wearing or not wearing a helmet will neither cause nor prevent an accident (well, most of the times). Many of us wear them because no corrective actions are taken on the above causes thus increasing the likelihood of head meeting tarmac.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom (Post 4499448)

A friend's daughter lives in Pune. Last time I saw her she was telling me how much more advanced it is, and how much better the attitudes of the people are compared to her native Tamil Nadu. Hmmm...

I don't know about advanced or not, but in terms of attitude one tends to see more of what one expects. I have had my own set of terrible experiences in TN, but would that be reasonable for me to tar everyone there with the same brush?

Quote:

Originally Posted by smooth indian (Post 4499386)

A sizable number of longtime Punekars often come across as 'दीडशहाणे' (oversmart in Marathi) and often too smart for their own good. This seems to be a example of that malaise.:rules:

Interesting. That statement is possibly applicable to everyone in their own locality. Once people are on their home ground they do tend to behave differently.
Oddly enough, if you tell a Punekar he is oversmart, that would most likely be taken as a compliment.:uncontrol

Quote:

Originally Posted by selfdrive (Post 4499508)

Oddly enough, if you tell a Punekar he is oversmart, that would most likely be taken as a compliment.:uncontrol

This statment of yours was so relevant and worth hearing, you had to tell it TWICE :uncontrol

Jokes apart, the result is going to be status quo - as with the case of (failure of) past directives, this one is going for a stale-mate and everyone is going to continue doing what they did so far - drive on the wrong side, carry helmets as fashion elements on the handle and not have a care in the world for safety.

And there are so-called activists who clearly (mis)link separate issues and propagate some really hilarious messages.

Few examples, to add to what has been quoted in some posts:-

Implementing the helmet rule is a showpiece achievement rl:

Not taking account of city's bad roads

Focusing on helmet instead of other crimes like over-speeding, lane cutting etc. :uncontrol

Revenue gathering

Source

I mean, guys, even if any of the above were to be seriously true, so what!

Interestingly, the new Pune Police Commissioner has his job cut out what with his decree that the helmet rule will be mandatory from 1st Jan.

So police went in a phased of first mandating helmet for government employees (link). This was to be implemented from yesterday, but eventually police gave up by evening since it was not possible to determine which rider is government employee and which one is not. Of course, government employees vehemently protested.

I believe such people are silently preparing to protest against government to have another fundamental right engraved in the constitution; the right to stupidity. :Frustrati