Helmet rule

After postponing it roughly 200 times, the state Government has finally made it compulsory for all two-wheeler riders in Karnataka to wear helmets. Err... except if you are in Bellary. This concession for Bellary is apparently because the weather is too hot there. I would have accepted that argument a couple of months back when the CD politics was at it's peak in Bellary and it was generating a lot of political 'heat'. But now, I don't see how Bellary is any more hot than Raichur, Gulbarga or even Mangalore. Bangaloreans can't claim any such concession unless Mallika Sheravat visits the city. (No, in fact I don't find her hot.)

There are obviously many advantages of wearing a helmet. I have at least 3 friends who are alive today only because they wore a helmeton a particular day in their lives. However, I am seeing that helmets are now helping not just the rider, but everyone else on the road. It is normal now-a-days to see youngsters talking on cell phones as if their life depends on it. In a few years, if Darwin's theory is any true, we should start seeing kids being able to use cell phones the moment they are born. Now, you don't expect people to stop talking on their phone just because they are performing, in parallel, another activity like riding a bike or doing a brain surgery. So they hold the phone between their ear and shoulder, bending their head completely to one side and continue riding. Obviously, we can't expect such people to ride attentively. Heck, I have seen pedestrians hitting poles and parked vehicles on the road because they were engrossed in talking on cell phone. I am always scared to see such people riding a bike in front of my car. You never know when they are going to do something very stupid and end up under your car. Now, with their helmets on, they cannot talk this way while riding the bike. So it is a simple solution to this problem. Of course, people can still hands-free, but that is better than before.

We need helmets to come with built-in head phones. Then we could use hands-free and FM radio on our cell phones while riding, without having to carefully wear the earphones. Hey, this could be a patentable idea right here!