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Crash Helmets: The Nigerian Experience
By Lateef Oladeji of Gem Business Ventures
Crash helmets are designed to protect the head in case of a motorcycle crash. The helmets come in different qualities and shades. The best ones are stuffed with adequate cushion, have transparent screens to protect the eyes against dust and wind, and have straps to hold it tightly in place on the head. With the economic downturn in my country, Nigeria, forcing the common man to embrace motorbikes for commercial transportation (locally called "okada business"), and with the increasing number of accidents emanating from it, the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) has made it mandatory for the okada operators and their passengers to wear crash helmets with effect from January 1, 2009. This was by way of enforcing a long existing law in the country. While the law and the FRSC have good intentions, the enforcement of the crash helmet provisions has been met with opposition and half-hearted observance. The initial problem has to do with the high price of the good types of helmet, some of which go for as high as =N=5,000.00 - about US $40 -, which most of the operators can't make in a fortnight. The opportunistic helmet merchants are really having a field day. Another problem has to do with the hot weather and the mode of dressing of the people. An average female passenger finds it odd having to remove her headgear in order to put on the helmet. Most of them end up either holding the helmet in their hands or balancing it loosely on thier headgears, thereby making a mockery of the law and their own safety. Then came a seemingly genuine excuse not to wear the helmets. Some people have claimed that they have contracted rashes and other skin diseases on their heads since they have started wearing the helmets provided by the okada operators. No one can fault this complaint too hard because the okada operators cannot but give the same helmet to different customers. To ask the passengers to buy and carry their own helmets about is to ask for impossibility. Quite apart from the excuse of disease-spread mentioned earlier, some passengers have expressed the fear over the possibility of disappearing through fetish means on wearing a helmet provided by somebody they do not know. There had been rumors circulating in the country about similar occurrences in the past. A more "scientific" basis of opposition to the wearing of helmets has been expressed by a few operators and their customers. They argue that most motorbike crashes had almost always affected the limbs and other parts than the head. To them, wearing the crash helmets would not serve the intended purpose. For now, while arrests are being made of the unlucky few of the violators of the crash helmet provisions, it's a kind of fun watching their violations by the affected people, whether by their not wearing it at all, or by the operator wearing it while the passenger does not, or by the operator and one of the passengers wearing it while the remaining ones don't or have none to wear (the operators here carry more than 1 passenger!), or by wearing the wrong one such as the construction helmet, or by holding it gingerly on top of headgears and turbans, or by merely holding it in the hand, or holding it with the hand to shield off the rays of the sun or... the options are limitless. The crash helmet fun reminds me of the extreme case I was told of an operator who carved and painted his own brand of calabash helmet. What ingenuity! It is only on a closer look or a wait till an accident occurs that one would discover that the invented "ingenuous" helmet is meant only to beat the FRSC. From the foregoing account, some pertinent questions arise. Is it not possible for government to subsidize the procurement of the crash helmets to reduce their prices, enhance the observance of the law and reduce the impact of motorbike crashes? Is it not possible to invent a limbs-and-trunk crash protector to supplement the current helmet meant for the head only? Is there no cheap but effective antiseptic spray that can be used to disinfect the crash helmets before or after each use? What about the fear of miraculous disappearances... I think every passenger should pray before mounting a bike:) All said, I believe that the use of genuine and superior crash helmets should be encouraged through massive campaigns and adequate availability of the items. More time should, therefore, be given for the enforcement of the crash helmet provisions, which people should not see as punitive or inconveniencing. Laws are made for the people, not vice versa. The complaints of the people affected should be investigated and redressed.
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Crash Helmet
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This intel was contributed by gembiz
gembiz
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May, 2012
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