Guests At This Agra Wedding Get Helmets Along With Sweets For Being Lax Towards Road Safety
Upset To see many guests arrive on two-wheelers without a helmet, a family in Agra distributed 300 helmets to drive home the road safety message
Mumbai: Guests in an Agra wedding were in for a surprise after they received a rather unusual return gift along with the sweets – a helmet. After Ved Prakash Rawat, groom’s father noticed that most of his guests arrived at the venue on two-wheelers without a helmet, he immediately decided to order helmets and distribute them at the end of the marriage ceremony. This thoughtful and on-the-spot action to promote road safety by the Mr Rawat was appreciated by the invitees and lauded by none other than the Agra senior superintendent of police Amit Pathak who was also present at the wedding.
Giving out helmets was not pre-decided. Like others, we had also kept sweet boxes ready for distribution. However, I was really disappointed to see so many bikes without helmets parked outside the marriage hall. India records so many deaths due to road accidents and most of these occur due to ignoring basic safety measures like wearing a helmet or putting a seat belt. Hence we decided to gift helmets, says Mr Rawat.
Also Read: Wearing Helmets – A Choice Between Life And Death
Echoing similar thoughts, 28-year-old Ambuj Rawat, the groom, believes that a simple gesture like this can go long way in saving people’s lives, “I’ve come across so many riders in Agra who don’t bother to wear helmets. The attitude and approach towards driving/riding is very careless and this was noticed during my wedding as well. We hope giving helmets has sent out a very simple yet a strong message of safe driving.”
According to the Road Accidents in India 2016 survey, two-wheelers riders who exceeded the speed limits and ones not wearing helmets accounted for the major share in total number of road accidents. Out of total of 52,500 two wheeler rider accidents, 10,135 riders were reported to be not wearing helmets. Sharing statistics of 2017, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari recently said that as many as 1.46 lakh people lost their lives in 4.60 lakh road accidents across the country in the year 2017 and majority of the road accidents involved two-wheelers where the victims were not wearing helmets.
