PANAJI
Goa's exceptionally high rate of accidents and fatalities on roads stirred interest and debate among the thousands of bikers from across India who participated in the two-day India Bike Week 2022 at Vagator which concluded on Saturday.
The issue of overall road safety, especially for bikers and two-wheeler riders, emerged as a talking point with motorcycle manufacturers as well as bike enthusiasts discussing initiatives launched to reduce road accidents, increase awareness and focus on good road engineering.
One initative that dominated the discussion was an awareness campaign to promote helmet use in Goa. Not wearing helmets, is cited as a prime reason for fatalities in road accidents involving two-wheelers.
Goa has among the highest road accident fatalities recorded over the last few years.In the last one decade, there were 270 deaths in 2012, 336 in 2016, 328 in 2017, 223 in 2020 and 226 in 2021.
This year from January to October, 202 road mishaps resulted in fatalities and 126 of the victims were two-wheeler riders.
Meanwhile at the IBW event, Panjimite Karl Coelho set up a commercial stall. He is the founder of Scan Patch, an unique safety deviceworn in the form of a patch on a biker’s gear. It provides all critical medical details of the biker in case of an accident to help reduce treatment time in the golden hour.
“The safety gear in the form of a fabric patch contains a scannable chip fixed on any part of your clothing wear, which enables the owner to store all emergency information: address, blood group, allergies, insurance, location and other functions," says Coelho, adding that in case of an accident, the information will be readily available to paramedics.
Another IBW participant, Anand Dharmaraj, global bike companies like Ducati have already included safety measures in their production processes.
“Key features using radar which give more information to the rider as to their location, lane changes and vehicles nearby in the mirror itself are included," Dharmaraj said, adding however that implementation in India will pose a challenge due to high volume of vehicles and speed differentiation.
