Daijiworld Media Network – Dharwad (SP)

Dharwad, Sep 17: Through an order that will have decisive impact on the accidents involving two-wheelers in the state, the local bench of the state high court, on Tuesday September 16, made wearing of helmets mandatory all over the state.

The bench, through an order issued to the commissioner in the department of law, ordered to make wearing of helmets mandatory for two-wheeler riders all over the state.

The order was issued by a bench of the high court comprising Justice Rammohan Reddy and Justice B Manohar. Now two-wheeler riders within the city corporation limits of Bangalore, Mysore, Mangalore, Hubli-Dharwad, Belgaum and Gulbarga are required to wear helmets compulsorily. Bellary has been exempted from the rule considering the hot climate prevailing there.

The order came during the hearing of a petition seeking higher amount of compensation filed by an engineering student who had suffered injuries in a road accident. Anish Shekhar Shah, a student of Basaveshwara Engineering College had been seriously injured in a road accident. He was not satisfied by the compensation granted by a lower court and hence approached the high court bench seeking to hike the compensation amount.

The bench expressed resentment at the fact that those who are expected to make the roads safer in the light of rising number of accidents have failed to introduce precautionary measures to reduce injuries and deaths in these accidents.

Although wearing of helmets for the riders was made compulsory in Karnataka in 2006 itself after the state high court intervened and asked the government to frame such a rule, except Bangalore, other cities were not strictly implementing this rule. The state government, based on a report prepared by National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences Bangalore in 2004 had thought of making wearing of helmets compulsory for both riders and pillion riders in the state, but it was withheld as the decision would have drawn flak from two wheeler riders, most of whom dislike the thought of wearing of helmets.