Karnal: Cops to campaign against sub-standard helmets

Parveen Arora

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Karnal, February 15

Aiming at ensuring the safety of bikers, the Traffic and Highways Police, Haryana, with the help of TRAX S Society, a road safety NGO, will hold a campaign against sub-standard helmets -“Na banega Na bikega” (no manufacturing, no sale).

The NGO will help in capacity building along with making the police personnel as well as general public aware of the rules and regulation under the Act as well as the importance of ISI-marked helmets respectively.

The Traffic and Highways Police, Haryana, will take action against the manufacturers of the substandard helmets and will issue challan to those wearing a non-ISI marked helmets.

As per the authorities, the section 129 of the Motor Vehicle Act, every person above four years of age, driving or riding or being carried on a motorcycle of any class or description have to, while in a public place, wear a protective headgear conforming to ISI standards. In violation of this, a fine of Rs 1,000 and the licence can be cancelled for a period of three months under Section 194 D of the Motor Vehicle Act.

To ensure the implementation on the ground level of this campaign, TRAX along with the Haryana Police hosted a webinar today, in which police officials were made aware of the provisions under the Motor Vehicle Act and Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) for quality of helmet.

“We are going to start a massive campaign against the sub-standard helmets. We will check the manufacturing of sub-standard helmets and will also issue challans to two-wheelers for wearing non-ISI helmets,” said Dr Rajshree Singh, IGP, Traffic, and the Highways Police Haryana.

“Road safety is a shared responsibility and it is the duty of every department and every person that people reach home safely. The use of ISI-marked helmets should be promoted as low-quality helmets are of no use in saving the lives,” she added.

SD Banga, former secretary, Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety, mentioned the provisions in the amended laws on helmet such as section 138 (4) (F) of the Central Motor Vehicle Rules (CMVR 1989), making mandatory for a dealer to provide a headgear to owner at the purchase of two-wheelers.

“Road safety is a common responsibility of all concerned stakeholders and not just the Police Department, all departments should be held accountable in case of an accident,” said Anurag Kulshtrestha, president, TRAX S Society

Jeetali Agnani, advocacy director, TRAX, said around 30 per cent people are dying in India due to non-wearing of helmets, hence it becomes more important to work on the issue.