How many of us wear helmets when we ride our bikes?
There was a phase where not wearing helmets was ‘cool’. Some of the common excuses were ‘It suffocates me’, ‘Am going bald here!’, ‘I can’t hear the other vehicles on the road’,'My brain stopped growing’ (We came up with the last one) lol!
Now, there are a lot of incidences that slap us on the face and ask us to take this safety precaution. Like the time I flew off the back of a bike, doing 100 kms/hr, bounced over a divider/median and landed in front of an oncoming car on the other side of the road. No helmet – head trauma, lost huge chunks of hair and told that my Halloween costume was so cool!
Here is a more recent one:
A few weeks back, Priyan decides to catch up with some friends. He rolls his bike out and starts it. Now it’s a well established fact that Priyan does not wear a helmet. Despite being pulled over by cops, he just never seems to like wearing one. Now, our daredevil, gets this gut feeling… an instinct that prompts him to wear a helmet this particular day. There he is cruising down the street when all of a sudden there is a smarting pain on his neck. He slows down the bike to check it out. To his horror he realizes that what he is choking on is a kite string (Maanja Nool). Please remember that here, the kite strings are coated with deadly components to give it strength and durability. This string is coated with a paste made with dough, ground glass and what not.
It quickly cuts through his helmet and is starting to gnaw at his throat. Eyes widening with pain, he lunges for the string and manages to pull it off his throat severly damaging his pinky.
“A piece of flesh flew off the pinky” he says
“So what did you do?” We ask, throats parching with anxiety.
“I caught it, put it in my pocket and rode to the hospital. I have no idea how I did it” He explains.
He lost a lot of blood and gained 8 stitches on his finger.
“I keep thinking what would have happened had I not heeded my instinct” he says, obviously thankful for the helmet.
National level statistics showed that 71.4 per cent of head trauma victims were two-wheeler riders and below 40 years. And Dr.Ganpathy, leading Neurosurgeon in India, claims “In my 30 years’ experience I have come across only two patients who died despite wearing helmets. Even advanced intensive medical therapy and skilled neurosurgery cannot correct severe irreversible brain injuries”
People, this is a message that comes as a reult of personal experiences:
It’s cool to wear a helmet… Totally uncool to wear your best suit to be buried in.
I’d rather wear a helmet than an arm cast or worse a catheter.
Here are some tips to make helmet wearing more fun:
Get your friends together and wear helmets of the same design, like a crew.
Customize your helmet with stickers and symbols that mean something to you. (You can get anything from “If you can read this, back the **** up!” to “Paddle faster, I hear banjo music”)
Get your helmet signed by from your friends/family – It’s unique and super cool!
Buy different bandannas and wear them across your face… Something symbolic and catchy. From skeleton masks to pink flowers, you can project a different mood each day!
Gift helmets with personal touches. They’ll get the message! 
If you have more cool ideas do leave them in the comments section!
Remember, for some, there is heaven, for the rest of us, there are helmets!
