There hasn't been a moment, I'm sure, when we have ever thought twice about the fact that anyone commuting on two wheels with a motor HAS to wear a helmet at the least, if not any other safety gear. Quite obviously, none of us want to spill all that brains we have out on the road, and it has been unanimously agreed that just the 22 bones covering it will not do when riding even at a nominal speed.

But has it? Here, where I live, in Chennai, there is a traffic law that every two-wheeler rider is to where a helmet of ISI standards at all times. I am not really sure how many other states this rules has come into effect under, but I will tell you that I was one of the gladdest when the rule came into effect. Amusingly enough, I watched innumerable friends of friends scramble to helmet shops across the city to purchase the cheapest set of ISI standardized helmets they could lay hands on.

It has been around a year now since that law came into existence, and the numbers wearing helmets when they ride has dwindled down extensively. I realize this fact, as the very evening I write this on, I wove through a traffic block and came to the source of commotion. What met my sight was too grotesque to describe in detail, but nonetheless - there lay a corpse on the road. A corpse of man, who had cracked open his skull. Apparently, he had hit one of the stones lying in the middle of the road as a makeshift divider, and had taken a fall, cracking open his skull and dying.

Barely two sundays ago, I had helped another elderly man, who had had a similar accident, and was injured in the head. But luckily, this time, he was alive. Although there were people standing on the road, no one stepped forward to help. I stopped my bike, got down to cross the road, checked for his breath and called an ambulance. I called a few other people to help, and lifted the man to lay him down by the side of the road until the ambulance came. I waited till he was taken away by the ambulance, and his family was informed of his accident, and then left. I can only hope that he remains alive and is healing now. I do not know.

There are two things common between these accidents. The first of these being how stones and sand are left all over the road. Several roads near my residence do not have a median, and have big blocks of stones in the middle of the road. Whether they were laid out in an orderly manner I do not know, but they are certainly haphazardly laid now, and are quite dangerous. People on the right-hand side of their lanes are very prone to hitting them - especially owing to opposing traffic coming in at high beams. I wonder why nobody does anything about them. I am a hypocrite in saying that, seeing as I myself have given up the practice of sorting anything out after a try or two.

The second one, which you obviously must have guessed is the use of helmets. My friend and I counted on one busy road when we could - 43 out of 87 two wheeler riders that we counted while waiting in hectic traffic, were riding without wearing a helmet. Several of them saw fit to equip their tank with their helmets. I know how much we all love our bikes, but when we hit the tar, it is certainly not out bike's tank that's going to crack and bleed to death. I find people giving several opinions for not wearing a helmet - visibility hampered (how???), hair loss (wear an under-helmet cap!), uncomfortably sweaty or suffocating (much better than sudden violent demises), and so on and so forth.

Is this the same everywhere? Do people follow the helmet rule in other places?

I just wanted to find out about your opinion.