VIJAYAWADA: Making the wearing of safety helmets mandatory will not result in any significant change in the mortality and morbidity rates of road accidents. Helmets reduce the impact of the blows on the head, but offer no protection to the spine and other vital organs, says president of the city chapter of the Andhra Pradesh Neuroscientists Association S.V.Ranga Rao. He served as the head of the neuro-surgery department in the Government General Hospital here for several years and now runs a state-of-the-art trauma care centre in the city.

Danger lurks

Sharing his experience of being a doctor and a driver for 20 years, Dr Rao says bad roads and unscientifically designed dividers need immediate attention.

Road dividers do not have a standard design and none of them have luminous markings. Poor lighting and potholes cause accidents particularly in the rainy season.

Unless these are rectified, there is no scope of a decrease in the number of accidents or their severity. He says that he sees about 100 road accident cases in a year and about 20 of them are head injuries. Except for one or two fatalities, the rest of the accident victims with head injuries survive. Fifty per cent of these accident victims show total recovery, but the others have problems, which usually plague them for life.

Weight matters

On the use of helmets and their quality, he feels helmets should be of light weight allowing enough ventilation. Most helmets obscure the hearing of drivers reducing their efficiency. Full-face helmets with visors add to the weight and discomfort of the rider causing neck problems, Dr Rao says. Helmets should offer protection to temples because the skull at temples is relatively fragile.

Dr. Rao feels that the programmes organised by different government agencies to promote awareness are not effective because they do not involve the neurologists and the orthopaedics. There is a need for fully equipped trauma centres to ensure that persons with head and spinal injuries get proper treatment. "More damage is caused in the second accident. By the second accident I mean the rough and harmful way the accident victims are handled on the way to hospital," Dr. Rao says.

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