India has witnessed an increase of road traffic accidents by 43% over the past 10 years.[1] The most vulnerable age group is the 30–59 years' group. India's share in the road traffic fatalities in the world is very high predominantly from the two-wheeler vehicles.[2] It has been estimated that the total number of road traffic deaths in India is likely to surpass 250,000 by 2025, which requires for urgent measures and rules in place.[3] Motorized two- or three-wheelers are a significant cause of preventable death, predominantly in men of productive age.[4] Of the several road safeties, helmet use during accidents has been shown to have better outcomes.[5],[6] We conducted a study on 500 patients/caregivers who attended our hospital outpatient services using two-wheeler, to see the reason for not using a helmet while driving two-wheelers. Male: female ratio was 3:1. The average age was 35±6 years. More than half (54%) felt that helmets were not essential. Forty-seven percent did not even own a helmet. Of the 53% who owned helmet, only 22% were using it. However, only 5% were regular users others used it only while traveling in highways. Seventy-one percent had been fined for not using helmets. Sixty-one percent reported having a vehicular accident while driving two-wheeler during the past 1 year. The details of the accident were not enquired. Reasons given for not wearing the helmet are shown in [Table 1]. Patients quoted more than one reason. Our study showed that patients had several reasons for not using helmets. Although 50% of the patients owned a helmet, only 5% were regular users. Although around 70% had been fined for not using helmets and 61% had an accident earlier, still they preferred not to wear the helmet. We found that the reasons for not using the helmets were very insignificant and several. Thirty-three percent felt that helmets are not required for their short journeys...
Language: en
", language="en", issn="0970-0218", doi="10.4103/ijcm.IJCM_205_19", url="http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/ijcm.IJCM_205_19" }