‘No Helmet No Fuel’ much needed

During 2022, India has reportedly registered the highest count of road crash fatalities, exceeding 1.68 lakh deaths. This unsettling statistic translates to an average of 462 deaths daily. Despite a 5% global decrease in road crash deaths, India witnessed a year-on-year increase of 12% in road accidents and 9.4% in fatalities in the same year. The country averages 19 deaths due to road accidents every hour which amounts to nearly one death every three and a half minutes. National Road Safety week has commenced across the country in a bid to create mandatory awareness among the citizens to reduce the number of road accidents, but there are some measures that need to be taken at the top level so that the motive of reduction in road accidents is achieved on the ground. One among the major decisions that needs to be implemented on the ground at the priority is that those riding the two-wheelers without crash helmets must not be provided the fuel at any refilling station. The district administration has already taken a lead in this regard by starting a process of stopping giving fuel to the riders of two-wheelers, who are found without the crash helmets. While the road accidents are on rise, there is a need to implement such a decision in all the districts across Jammu & Kashmir so that the preventable fatal road accidents are prevented well on time instead of boosting the morale of these violators by providing them such facilities at the fuel stations. There is a need to come up with such an initiative immediately so that the people would at least start following the rules by wearing the crash helmets and the loss of lives could be prevented.