A fine is going to be levied and the message seems to have got across to the public. As I enter Pioneer Scooter Centre on GP Road, Chennai in the mid-afternoon there are a lot of customers trying to purchase helmets that best suits them. In the counter is seated a man who is very happy that atleast now this much needed law has been enforced.

Jugal Kishore Arora has been spreading the awareness about the safety of using helmets tirelessly for the last 37 years. He has been selling helmets in his shop from the year 1970 and advertising in all the papers, encouraging and motivating people to use helmets.  He narrated his story, “I opened my first shop in 1963. I was selling four wheeler spare parts then and later shifted to selling two wheeler spare parts as the boom was for two wheelers in the late sixties. It was in 1970 that I started selling helmets as I was inspired by Dr. B. Ramamurthi. I met him by chance and became a good friend of this famous neuro-surgeon who suggested that I could sell helmets and also spread awareness about wearing helmets, thereby saving lives”.

Ever since he has been very passionate about selling helmets and in those days the target he set was a mere 8 helmets a month. He sold helmets at cost price because his intention was people should buy and wear them. He forced his friends and regular customers to use helmets. In this entire period of 37 years it was only between 1985 and 1989 that helmets were made compulsory by the law. After this long gap and several casualities, helmets have been re-enforced again. 

                     

Today he has four exclusive helmet showrooms in GP Road, Mount Road, Adyar and St. Thomas Mount and his first shop on GP Road is the only one which has two wheeler accessories also. He informed that he shelved all the brands including Studds, Globe, Steelbird, Vega and Safe. He said that helmets actually protected the head against direct heat and let air inside and nowadays there are cotton caps inside which can be washed, there are also a lot of helmets that are very attractive to the youth. He felt that people could buy any brand that suited them but should look for the ISI mark to be assured of good quality. He added, “When people wear helmets diligently for 15 days, they would get used to it and find it comfortable and then they would not travel in two wheelers without helmets”. 

Statistics reveal that there are about 17 lakh two wheelers in the city of Chennai and an average of around 5 lakh two wheelers in each of the other main cities in Tamil Nadu.  Pioneer Scooter Centre is one of the leading suppliers of helmets and being pioneers, they are the main suppliers not only in the city of Chennai.  Having worked towards the cause of road safety for two wheeler users for almost four decades, they get orders from all parts of Tamil Nadu and supply to both wholesalers and retailers.

Jugal Kishore Arora says that most of the two wheeler users will buy helmets only in the end of May and effort is being made to fulfill the demand. He said that sale of helmets will be phenomenal, but he concluded emphatically that his desire has been fulfilled now as “People will have to wear helmets for their own safety”.