Bengaluru: Pillion riders not wearing helmets while riding on two wheelers can get away with it for some more time as there is no sign of the rule being enforced. Though the transport department in tandem with the city traffic police notified the rule about a month ago, the ongoing Legislature sessions seems to have delayed the issue of orders.
“Transport secretariat had issued the draft notification calling for objections and suggestions from the public on September 18. The department had scrutinised both the objections and suggestions after a period of 30 days from issue and at present the file is with the government. Since the Legislature sessions are underway, we do not know the status of the file, and the government has to take a call,” said Maruthi Sambrani, Additional Commissioner, Enforcement South, to Deccan Chronicle.
“We have also submitted the order copies of helmets being compulsory for pillion riders in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Delhi, and Punjab to the secretariat for their perusal,” said Rame Gowda, Transport Commissioner. After a statistical analysis of road accidents involving two-wheelers in the city where it was noted that pillion riders meet fatality in almost 50% of the two-wheeler accidents that happen and in majority of the incidents with fatal head injuries, the Bangalore Traffic Police (BTP) proposed to the Transport Department on making helmets mandatory for pillion riders. The proposal came to the fore recently after the death of the 25-year-old Stuthi Pandey who was riding pillion with her husband on the Devarabeesanahalli flyover on September 18.
Meanwhile on Thursday morning alone, in a short span of 2-hours, the BTP booked 2,596 cases of riding without helmet. The special drive on riding without helmets was carried along with booking offending auto-rickshaw drivers in numerous spots at various junctions across the city.
“Since the accidents especially self accidents happen during early hours in the morning and riders’ presume cops start to work late, there are a lot of riders who ride without helmet during those hours 6 am to 8 am.,” said M.A. Saleem, Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) adding that around 14 lakh cases of riding without helmet have been booked since the start of this year so far.
Blast from the past
- January 2015: On the New Year Day, Nishanth, a resident of Chandra Layout was riding with his uncle Jagannath Rao as pillion rider. Rao was not wearing a helmet when their bike rammed into an auto-rickshaw and the pillion rider died on the way to the hospital. Rao was in the city to celebrate New Year with his nephew.
- June 2015: Anand Mathew, 20, son a Kerala High Court judge died in a road mishap near Diary Circle near Christ College. He was riding pillion without helmet when his friend who was rider lost controlled over the bike and rammed into a wall killing his friend.
- Sep. 2015: Dileep Singh, 26, a techie who was riding pillion with his friend Himanshu Soni, also a techie and both of them residents of Koramangala met with an accident on their way to Nandi Hills, after their bike hit a speed breaker near Raani Circle. The pillion rider who was not wearing helmet sustained fatal head injuries and died on the spot.
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