Why do we hate seat belts so much
As humans, we hate death. Nobody wants to die. But we still make choices where there is a risk of death. I risk it with sugar and smoke. Every human has their own touch-and-go moments with death, like paragliding, flying Air India, or getting married. There are many such choices.
Apart from these choices, the rest of the time we are constantly avoiding death. And this is a combined effort. Even the government intervenes and says, ‘Bro, wear a seat belt. Don’t die in a car, please. I have better options’.
When seat belts were optional, we never wore them. So they made it mandatory and said they’d fine you if you didn’t wear one. We still didn’t care.
In fact, when I was younger, my uncle would assign me the duty of looking out for traffic cops. My only job in the car was to alert him before we reached them so that he could quickly wear his seat belt. Save money, but don’t save life. What a useless motto.
Car companies then conspired with the government to make sure we wear seat belts. Cars started coming with mandatory seat-belt alarms. If you don’t wear one, the car keeps beeping.
And here’s what I’ve understood about humans. We went way out of our way to avoid wearing seat belts.
I once got into a cab where the alarm kept going off. The driver wasn’t wearing a seat belt. I told him, ‘Anna, put on the seat belt. The alarm will stop’. He said, ‘Even if I wear the seat belt, the alarm will keep going. It’s a fault’.
This man would rather go deaf listening to beep-beep all day than just wear a seat belt.
Usually, the alarm goes off after three minutes, which itself is torture for me. But for the cab driver, it happens every time he stops and restarts the car. So literally, every time he starts a trip, he hears the alarm for three minutes.
Let’s say on an average he takes 20 rides a day. With all the stops, he is ready to listen to beep-beep-beep for almost an hour every day instead of just listening to one click and becoming safer.
I have given up on understanding cab driver logic. It’s a rabbit hole with no drop-off point.
Car owners are worse.
I like wearing a seat belt simply because I don’t trust other drivers. So I always look for one whenever I get into someone else’s car. My friend, however, has her seat belt permanently fixed by looping it from behind the seat so that it fools the car into believing the seat belt is always worn. If this is how the brain of someone in the top 10 percent of the economy works, then there is no hope for this city.
And this is not the end of it. Now, the idea of not wearing seat belts is so popular that there is a whole new industry around it. There are plain clips that fit into your seat belt slot. These clips are sold at traffic signals for Rs 300 to Rs 600. Some of these clips even come in Peppa Pig and Tom and Jerry characters, so that they look cute.
The government has banned vapes and hookah, but this is allowed.
I don’t really want to change the world. I know I can’t. I just want to understand it. But I can never figure out what this is. Rebellion? Comfort? Living on the edge?
And what do we really hate? Wearing a seat belt, or life itself?
Sandesh
@msgfromsandesh
(This comedian is here to tell funny stories about Hyderabad)
(The writer’s views are his own)