Seat Belt

The law mandates that the two passengers who occupy the front seats has to wear a seat belt. Well its only a law, which is seldom enforced. I have seen many of the young in flashy cars wearing it. But the older generation never wear it. I guess it because they are not used to the seat belts in their time and consider it to be an irritant.

Seat belt has its on woes. Once I went home and took my dad’s 800 out. As a reflex I put on the seat belt everytime I enter a vehicle, or atleast my hands search for it. I put on the seat belt. After coming back I realized that I have a Slanting ‘L’ mark on my shirt. The seat belt was never used and dust was accumulating on it.  After that I gave the law a skip while using his old 800.

My office mandates that all employees and cab drivers wear seat belts when they exit from the building. The security folks make sure that all are strapped in. The minute the cab drive out of the building premises, the cab driver removes the seat belt in a easy fast motion. “Difficult hai” he said to me once. I stayed strapped in.

The cab driver at my wife’s company wouldn’t even bother to buckle. He will just pull the belt over his chest and drive with one hand. Once the car moves out of the building he just let go of the belt !

I recently had an argument with a relative of mine on using helmets and seat belts. His argument was that helmets and seat belts are an irritant. He went to the extent of saying that there is no use of getting a preserved head if the rest of your body got thrashed in an accident.

I guess there is no point in enforcing these laws. It should be what the people should be taking as precautions.

Consider this scenario, an Indian check the gas connection, check if the fan/bulbs are running, check if the iron is ON before locking his house. And then he pulls the ‘Godrej’ lock twice to see if it was locked right. Then he ride on his bike without a helmet. We cover all gadgets in cover/plastic. (check this post out) to protect it.

I guess we take many precautions to take care of our belongings than ourselves!

*Update : The relative I talked about is an advocate.

Cabbies n quick money !

 There was nothing unusual about my cab driver for today ( he was driving the car with one hand on the steering wheel and one on his cell phone, after quickly overtaking the car in the front, he switched gears while handing me the route sheet.. In the mean time he managed to shows signs (in an obscene manner) to a motor cyclist who cut in front of us. All while trying to open a packet of PAN.) 

Whew.

 But there was something unusual about him, that why I am writing this blog after all. In spite of doing all this in one rapid action he managed to go under the dash board to turn some squeaking knob. And each time he did that, the meter turned 2KM.

“Are bhaiyya, what are you doing” I asked.

 “Nothing” he replied startled.  

When he did that for the third time I asked him “Is there any thing wrong with the meter?” 

 He said “Yes” and said that, that’s the reason why he has to run it manually!!!!! 

Most of the companies have outsourced their transport division. Mostly some third party vendor arranges the cab for the companies, the third party keeps a route sheet with these cab drivers who have to log in the meter reading when they move out of the company facility and when they come back after the pick up. 

My cabbie was just trying to make some quick money; he would just turn the meter to some extra 10 KMs for each trip because this will go unnoticed. Well not now!