Rules are rules, better follow them !Helmet call

People just don’t listen. It seems like ‘If we are told to do this, we will not.’ It is this line of thinking which is clearly visible in the number of people pulled up everyday for violating the SOPs laid down during the Covid pandemic as well as in the large number of people pulled up on Day I of the crackdown launched by Churachandpur police to check two wheeler drivers moving around non-chalantly without their helmets. It is this line of thinking which could be responsible for the large scale spread of the virus during the second wave as well as in the deaths in road accidents involving two wheelers. Nobody seems to give a care that there are rules to be followed and it this mindset which is visible not only at Churachandpur but all over Manipur. Launch the helmet drive in Imphal too and one can easily visualise the number of helmetless driver who would be pulled up on any given day. The Government has not yet made any announcement on this as yet, but make seat belts compulsory for all those on the front seat of a four wheeler and one can imagine the number of people who would be pulled up simply because they ‘forgot’ or ‘did not care’ to put the seat belt on while moving around comfortably on their four wheeler. Now ask the same set of people who were pulled up for not wearing their helmets while zooming around on their two wheelers at Churachandpur on November 1 on whether they would dare drive sans their helmets say in a city like Delhi and one can imagine the answer that would come from them. Defies logic, but their train of thought seems to be ‘why should I be penalised for I know I am not going to meet with an accident and I drive carefully and slowly anyway.’ This answer or something similar along this line would come from anyone from any part of the State when pulled up for not wearing their helmet but the tragedy is such line of thinking exposes their shallowness of trying to be ‘unique.’ Far from not wearing the helmet, it is mindset like this which causes road mishaps and everyone knows how road accidents claim the lives of people.
Respect the law. This is the bottomline and this should be more than drilled into the heads of these ‘wanna be unique’ elements. It is disregard for the law which is chiefly responsible for road accidents on the roads of Manipur and when one refuses to wear the helmet. It is such mindsets which may be said to be primarily responsible for the road accidents that one gets to hear and see regularly. The State alone cannot do it and this is where it becomes important for parents, elders and others of the family to ensure that their children and the younger lots do not move around without the helmet when they take out the two wheeler. Ground those who were found moving around on their fancy bikes without a helmet and this should be over and above the penalty that must have been imposed by the Traffic police. Helmet rules cannot and should not be seen in isolation of the immense need of everyone to extend co-operation. In many ways the stoic refusal of people to wear their helmet may be said to be a reflection of the general mindset, which says, ‘I don’t care’ and this is absolutely unacceptable by any standard.