Helmets may be made mandatory in Hyderabad

Reasons behind the failure of earlier helmet enforcement drives are being studied, says Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Amit Garg

The helmet rule has not been very successful in the past.

With enforcement drives against drink-driving and tinted four-wheeler window glasses yielding results, the city police are now planning to make wearing helmets mandatory for two-wheeler drivers.

Past experiences at trying to implement compulsory helmet rule are being evaluated and a plan of action would be devised soon, the new Additional CP (Traffic) Amit Garg said on Wednesday.

“Reasons behind the failure of earlier helmet enforcement drives are being studied and we will start the campaign by educating the public about importance of wearing helmets,” Mr. Garg said, while addressing the participants at a consultative workshop organised by Indian Institute of Public Health, Hyderabad (IIPH-H) here.

Some argue that wearing helmets in the city is not required as the average traffic speed is just 20 km per hour. But statistics show that fatalities due to the road accidents are still high in the city and wearing helmets would help reduce them considerably, Mr. Garg said.

Starting with education, enforcement would be initiated in a phased manner, he added.

DCP (Traffic) P.V.S. Ramakrishna, IIPH-H Director, G.V.S. Murthy and Head of Department at National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, Bangalore, Dr. Gururaj also participated in the workshop.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Ramakrishna said that the department is looking at ways to make enforcement drive against drink-driving more effective.

“After conducting enforcement drive for more than one year we now find that the incidents of mixing drinks and driving are rampant in outskirts and a majority of them are two-wheeler drivers. We are devising newer ways to check these practices,” he said.

To crack down on drink-driving, each traffic police station will conduct checks at four different places in the city. Along with changing locations, the department will also tweak the timings, he said.

Speakers at the workshop also spoke about different aspects of road safety and the steps that should be taken to reduce the number of road accidents.