Last year, more than 2L prosecuted for not wearing helmet: Report

kolkata: Though the police are trying to make people aware about wearing helmet while riding two-wheelers, the annual review report of Kolkata Traffic Police shows that most of the people do not care about the suggestions or the warnings.

The recently published annual review report of Kolkata Traffic Police indicates that the trend of not wearing helmet has increased alarmingly.

According to the report, in 2018, a total of 190708 people were prosecuted for not wearing helmets while riding their two-wheelers.

In the year 2019, the figure jumped to 270994. But the figure of 2020 was quite alarming as the figure reached 278940 despite around three months of complete lockdown implemented.

Police however claimed that they are trying to make people aware of the consequences of not wearing a helmet while riding two wheelers.

It may be mentioned that the Safe Drive Save Life (SDSL) campaign which is the brainchild of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was quite successful since its beginning as violation of traffic norms had reduced.

However, a number of other offences like driving a car without wearing seat belt, using mobile phone while driving, signal violation, driving in drunken conditions and over speeding has gone down every year.

"We can prosecute law violators for not wearing helmets but one has to understand what a helmet can do in case of an accident.

Also it has been noticed that several people just wear helmets, just to evade prosecution as they do not buy a good helmet or do not close the chin strap accordingly.

As a result, it fails to absorb the impact during an accident," said a senior traffic cop.