Driving without helmet in India and implications

We had a couple who were admitted in our hospital. the husband and wife both sustained head injuries. The husband was wearing a helmet but did not apply the strap of the helmet to keep in place in case of accident. He needed intensive care and surgery which saved him.

The wife did also have head injury, only the difference is that she died. Because she did not wear any helmet. She sustained severe head injuries. It was interesting to note that the pillion riding women exempted from wearing the helmet.

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-03-01/delhi/31113321_1_helmet-uniform-law-exemption

This is the gist of the article in the times of india

"‘Helmet relief in sync with Central law’
TNN Mar 1, 2012, 03.05AM IST


Tags:
wearing helmet|Motor Vehicles Act
NEW DELHI: The Delhi government on Wednesday informed the Delhi high court that it has framed rules exempting women from wearing helmet only in compliance with the central law - the Motor Vehicles Act.

Filing an affidavit in response to a PIL challenging the exemption to women, the state transport department told a bench of acting Chief Justice A K Sikri and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw that the central law had made it optional for a woman riding pillion to wear a helmet. The bench then directed the petitioner to go through the government's affidavit and file his objections by April 25."

Please go through the above link which says that the central law makes it optional for women to or not to wear helmets.

May be the value of life for their wifes is not as much as their own in the husbands' point of view.

May be the wifes themselves have to take care of themselves.

Or just in seat belt case, the driver used to be penalised for any passengers for not wearing seat belts. May be we have to ask the law to be modified so that the driver of the two wheeler pays double fine for himself and the wife at the back

Or may be the wife should be penalised separately

Or more importantly the central law by the Indian Government needs to be reviewed. Otherwise the legal system cannot impose and the police cannot enforce helmet wearing for women at the back.

Or it is time for the womensfolk to start their own lobby

My friend when he sees a two wheeler driving crazily, he stops and tells the pillion rider of the two wheeler, " please dont go with him, he will kill you sooner or later"

Funny but true

think and start your own lobby for your friends and families' ladies and wives

Regards

Chockalingam

Portable generator risk of injury: One can lose his or her limb!

please open the above photo in a separate window to appreciate the open generator and the risk

We had a lady in her early twenties, went in to switch off a diesel generator which was powering a clinic. Her dress caught accidentally and the arm got in to the motor and she lost her limb from shoulder level!

Shocking and really upsetting even to hear this. When i was the treating surgeon to explain to the relatives that the arm which they had brought with the hope of reimplantation, it was very disturbing.

Then i went to a marriage where the common seating area had the generator running,[ the photo above] i noticed that the people simply were walking past in sarees and chudhidhar and children running about, my heart was bounding with fear

this is the generator where the blades rotating are seen outside and not covered as in modern generators. These open generators are commonly seen in India at all work places where portable generator is used.

http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/pubs/portgen.html

now go to the above web site, limb injury is not in the portable generator hazards.

It however is a never event to lose a limb when not in the line of duty in civilian life. Never Event is a term used in health care setting, but i feel that we should have the same in a domestic setting. refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_events


Please pass on the above incident to all your folks and i have posted the photo of the generator above which is commonly used in India. please advise of this risk to your folks and ask to take care. here the blades are seen rotating outside where as the modern generators have the blades covered or the whole machine covered

We had a lady who was going with the Idol in Srirangam temple around the Praharam in a cart, got her saree caught in the generator which was powering the lights. She too lost her limb and remember this was a mother of a two year old and lost her right upper limb completely. This is entirely preventable. please Campaign for No More Open Generator wherever you see and live

Regards

Chockalingam

Only half of Tamil Nadu Population have access to Toilets! news from Times of India.

If you have followed my blog published in june 2011 , i had highlighted the issue of sanitation or the lack of it in Trichy. I had posted a photo of central Bus Stand in Trichy where animals and men are scrounging for something from the area where things and eatables are dumped.

There is an article from the Times of India today on the issue of the title of this blog.

Fifty percent of us living in India without access to public toilet.

Worrying?

Now go back to the circle of life as depicted in The Lion King a Children's movie. Are we really in the circle of life in India with us thinking that we are the Kings of the civilised life, but in reality the bugs have always been the king of the Real World.

Remember the Bugs and insects have been living in the world long before the human being and hence will outlive us. But that does not mean that we have to facilitate our demise by providing a poor sanitation where we live.

If you really want to fight for it, please campaign for public toilets which are free for the public to use who do not have access to one in rural areas to prevent contamination of sewage with our daily consumption meaning food.

This way we can certainly stop some communicable diseases, but that does not mean that we are going to outlive the bugs!

Warm Regards

Chockalingam

Sky, Wind, Water ,Earth,and Sun.Are they Really Gods?. The trekking trip which teaches Spiritualism.

Man controls most things on the planet. Yes. He can tame an elephant, hunt a tiger [of course not now], Get a lion to a circus [ of course not now], put the snake into a park say the snake park in Chennai.

He does control other human beings, either as a business man, politician, sales man, a doctor and so on and so forth. He beats his fellow humans in sports and in war and even kill them.

He can build buildings as tall as he can at present and keeps beating the other like a game.He builds computers which are powerful and controls them to what they can do and what they should not [ of course for the time being]

He can fly [ of course in an aeroplane], swim and so on.

What is he cannot control something. They must be Gods.

When we did this 7km trekking up the hill near Thuraiyur to an altitude of one Km, you see the awe of the sun, wind, earth, the water and the sky and you really start wondering what i had titled this blog

Are they really Gods?

You may not want to name them Gods, but certainly something you can say that they have something which we cannot achieve or control or tame as you do for an elephant perhaps

Spritualistic, you may say. but does that not make you think. If you are not convinced, then take up a challenge to trek high[ of course you cannot do the same to the bottom of the ocean]

I will post some photos soon

With Regards

Chockalingam

Excellence is merely a habit. Accountability is the key however for this to be true.

Excellence is merely a habit. Surprised!.

suppose you need to clean the floor in the work place regularly and that is your job. Then you have the knowledge that a clean floor is beneficial to all of us and reduces problems with the health of all us. you also know which agents you use to clean and the materials you need to use to do the job well.

You have acquired the skill to clean the floor well.

the third attribute would be the right attitude. in other words if you do not feel the conscience that doing your job regularly and well is essential, then having the knowledge and the skill to do do not matter at all.

We need to add repetition of this work day and night consistently, then you are excellent. In other words doing a job once and well does not, i repeat does not denote excellence. Only if you repeat the work consistently to high standards, then excellence comes.


If one does a work consistently well everytime he does, then excellence is merely a habit, agreed!!!


But remember we need to add the responsibility that this job is our own is the key to consistency.Only when you assign responsibility to a person, one can expect consistency. However if one does not accept responsibility, then he does not take ownership.

If one does not want to take the ownership of a job or the work to be done, then it is difficult to get the consistency. In other words, if ownership is not assigned, then the responsibility is not transparent to the individual at work.

Then one cannot be made accountable for the excellence or the absence of it in that work.

Accountability has been the central theme to improvement at any work place. To be accountable, one need to do do the job well but also keep a record of this.

now how do we apply to our day to day life, you might ask

You do see that most rest rooms as they call it now a days, are cleaned regularly many times in a day and also a display is done to show that they are indeed cleaned with the name of the person who has done so with the signature. This is what is called accountability.

If a toilet cleaning is made accountable, imagine all things and works which should be made accountable!!!!

Keep in Touch

With Regards

Chockalingam

Why people do not follow rules, the psychology of anti social behaviour and its impact to a common man Part 2

We are in the process of treating a young man who was run over by a lorry. We had to amputate his leg to save his life. His leg was crushed and with in few hours, he as gone to renal failure. We had three patients in short succession of time with road traffic accidents with similar mechanism of injury. The pillion driver of the two wheeler is run over by a lorry.

When you drive in a car, you often do not give due consideration to a two wheeler on the same road. The same applies if you are a lorry driver, you do not worry about the car and so on and so forth. You would think then that the pedestrian or the person on the smaller vehicle will be very careful so that he/she does not get hurt

But the opposite is often the case. Here the person on the smaller vehicle or the pedestrian feels that he has the right of the way. Often he/she does not obey the traffic rules and still feels that what he has done is right.

Now coming back to the person on the two wheeler who got hit by the bus from the last blog. He was behind a smaller vehicle and gave due consideration to the traffic light and stopped when it was red.

The bus behind did not think it was necessary to stop at the red light and decided to drive on, but in the process hit our patient who stopped.

It does now begin to puzzle you to understand the psychology of what is right in a given situation. Should you follow rules, but might get hit in the process. Or should you follow the herd and live like a Roman in Rome.

Now what can be termed anti social. Like stopping at red light and get hit by the bus behind. it could be still within law but may be anti social. Or one might break the law like crossing a traffic light when it is red for example, but within the social norms of the day and the place you are living

Interesting

Going back to the run over incidents in India, the crush is so severe that people lose limbs. Be Very Careful if you drive a two wheeler in India, as you would not know whether the person behind the other vehicle would behave. Anti social, within the law, break the law but within the social norms of driving in India!!!!1

Hope you got the gist of it

Regards

Chockalingam

Why people do not follow rules, the psychology of anti social behaviour and its impact to a common man

Imagine you travelling at night driving a car, you come across a red light at traffic junction. You are the only vehicle at this junction and you are tempted to stop due to the fact that it is red. You look well across all directions. Definitely there is no other vehicle. You then are tempted to go past the red light. If you know that there can be traffic cameras and you might receive a letter with fine and points on your license, then you suppress the temptation of crossing the red light, as you know it is only few seconds before it goes green.

The scenario i have given is a common sense approach. Even though the common sense tells you to override the red signal as there are no traffic, the regulatory fear of traffic camera stops you doing so.

If you had read my previous blog of hazard, risk and incident, then you understand that another moving vehicle or pedestrian is the hazard for you in the car. The risk is very low as it is middle of the night and you reduce the risk by looking well all around. you think the chance of an incident of an accident is so low that you want to take the chance and you are tempted to cross at the red signal.

As the society does not want you to take even that chance, the traffic camera makes you decide to stop.

But then this logic does not seem to work in India while you are driving. One of my patient i am treating at the moment is a handicapped polio patient who was driving a two wheeler. he came to a traffic signal where the signal was red. he duly followed the above logic and decided to stop.
He then landed at our hospital with a fracture of the leg and shoulder.

Why? Why and Why ! these are the questions he asked me and you are probably asking as well

Wait for my blog and i am sure if you are driving in India you already know why

Regards

Chockalingam