‘Punekars feel proud about being anti-helmet’

We should have empathy and consideration for others and it will result in less conflict on the roads, says road safety activist Ajit Aggarwal

I run an organisation – Margdarshak – for road safety. While enforcement of law and respecting rules is a core part of road safety, I personally feel that we must learn to respect others first.

We should have empathy and consideration for others. It will result in less conflict on the roads. I am literally, mentally blind while using roads. I use road presuming that it’s meant only for me. We should learn that the road is meant for sharing. If we share it happily, we will have fewer accidents. In this process, we will learn to respect rules and regulations related to traffic. Today, everybody is in a hurry and feels that mine is the only important work. It is not good.

We should educate people from schools. We had a good experience. We did an experiment, where we asked students to insist their parents and neighbours to wear helmets whenever they are out on a two-wheeler. It worked out nicely. Parents and neighbours cannot neglect a request from a kid because of emotional attachment; because both of them care for each other. Many of them are wearing helmets now.

We insisted on the use of seat-belt while driving a car in 2009. Results are good. Most of car drivers are seen using seat-belts in Pune, which was not happening earlier.

Helmets continue to be a problem. My observation is that police are willing to enforce the helmet compulsion, but cannot because of pressure from Mantralaya.Politicians are afraid of their vote bank. Every time we do something on helmets, we are opposed by people who are mainly politicians. The unfortunate part is people of Pune feel a pride in saying: “I am an anti-helment activist”.