Dear Editor,
I greatly appreciated Alfred Bhulai’s letter (SN, June 9) detailing his concerns over and his personal experiences of the lawless use of our roads by bikers. His characteristic tone of irony was especially enticing, though one suspects that it was quite lost on those whose incompetence it exposed.
Mr Bhulai’s coverage of the subject (including the reasons why neither the police nor insurance companies are contacted when accidents occur) was most comprehensive. Nevertheless I would like to add one small observation. Part of the problem, Mr Bhulai says, is the fact that bikers do not wear helmets. But the even more disturbing truth is that few of our non-biker motor-cyclists wear helmets ‒ at least, not the kind of helmets that would prevent injury.
Possibly a hard hat is an advance on the old-time home-made calabash helmet. But a hard hat is designed for use on a building site, to protect the head from falling objects, while the kind of protection needed for a motor-cyclist is very different. True, properly designed helmets are prohibitively costly, but it is surely hypocritical for the authorities to give the nod to substitute helmets that offer no protection at all ‒ just a false sense of security.
Yours faithfully,
Joyce Jonas
