VIJAYAWADA: A week ago, Vijayawada Commissioner of Police Bathini Sreenivasulu has directed all station house officers (SHOs) that the staff working in their respective police station limits must wear helmets with ISI mark, while riding two-wheelers.
Apart from issuing memos to people, the SHOs also issued memos to around 100 police personnel of various ranks when they found the driving vehicles without helmets. “We, the police, should practice what we preach. We are observing zero tolerance towards the helmet rule as many people have lost their lives in road accidents by not wearing safety gear,” B Sreenivasulu told TNIE.
“Annual reports on road accidents show that more than 70 per cent of accidental deaths could have been avoided if the riders had worn helmets. In this regard, we are conducting enforcement drives to sensitise the people about the need to wear helmets to protect themselves from road accidents,” he added.
The city top cop also instructed traffic department to identify the policemen violating traffic rules such as riding motorcycles without helmet, cell phone driving, wrong side driving with aplomb and impose penalties.
“There will be no exemption for the police personnel if they violate traffic rules. So far, we have imposed fines on more than 50 policemen and made them pay immediately. On the other hand, we are inspecting the quality of helmets as the usage of non-ISI helmets will result in grievous injuries or fatalities as they are substandard,” traffic ADCP T Sarkar said.
All the SHOs held a meeting with their staff and told them that wearing helmet is mandatory. A notice has also been pasted on the notice board. “Six staff in my police station received memos for not complying with the orders. After that, I observed a change in the staff—all of them, without exception, started wearing helmets,” Penamalur Inspector M Satyanarayana said.