IMPACT OF HELMET ADVOCACY AND ENFORCEMENT IN RAJASTHAN (Paper 762)

The Center for Road Safety at the Sardar Patel University of Police (SPUP), Security and Criminal Justice has started implementing a project to improve road safety in the state of Rajasthan, India.  The specific objectives of this study was to record the impact of helmet use advocacy and legislative revision followed by advocacy for increased helmet use. A baseline study on Helmet Usage among 1, 17,553 two wheeler drivers was conducted during March 2015.  After these series of enforcement and helmet advocacy programs were carried out by the Center for Road Safety.  A post advocacy impact assessment survey was conducted with 1, 17,295 two wheeler drivers during December 2016. During the baseline, a  total  of  seven  high-traffic  volume  sites  representative  of  each  administrative  divisional headquarter were selected for observation using stratified random sampling.  A 35-item, face-to-face roadside interview tool was completed over seven, one hour time slots similar to that of observations.  It was found that in the baseline, 39% (46,330) drivers wore helmet correctly, in the post-test 57.5% (67418) drivers wore helmet correctly, the difference was found to be significant (χ2=503.839, p<0.0001).  Though there is an increase in wearing helmet, but many people have started wearing helmet incorrectly (χ2=9424.95, p<0.0001).  It can be concluded that, there is a significant improvement in the behavior of individuals with regard to usage of helmet.  The implication of this finding is that concentrated efforts of awareness generation have to be made in the divisions where the reported helmet use by driver is lower.