Why do any one need a helmet?

A non descriptive day, some where in the middle of last week. I am all ready and fresh as a whatchamacallit and all set to go to work. I ease out Jeevs from the parking lot, pat him gently, and he greets me with a warm spark. We both starts rolling, and the day seems perfect as a picture post card.

Beep beep.. ka boom.. screech... A sudden jolt made me break my reverie and I see traffic suddenly comes to a jarring halt... I ease down the speed, idling the engine and starts pushing the bike slow and then I saw the cause of the jam - an accident. A silver Pulsar 200 lying on the road, no visible damages - not even broken headlamp or mirrors, a red pulsar, being lifted up and a shaky rider standing besides the bike... nothing out of ordinary - after all, these small kinds of accidents do happen. But then I saw the other guy - the P200 rider - lying next to his bike. No damage on his body other than on his head... his head is lying in a pool of blood, and I stopped and was going to help people moving him to hospital - when they said that he is already gone. On the spot. Like a puff... The guy just came to main road for something - and he was NOT wearing a helmet. Only if he would have wearing a good helmet...

Fast forward to today morning. After wading through almost half a kilometer of traffic jam at Old Madras Road, Me and Anikutty had a sigh of relief when we cleared the snarl and slowly took her to a sweet 60... The road was almost empty - a straight stretch (between Infinity Tech Park and BigBazar - when coming from KR Puram towards MG Road) and I saw some vehicles coming from opposite direction... people never learn the meaning of one way... I saw a BMTC bus breaking the one-way and coming in my lane, and the suddenly, I saw a bike and the rider flying across the road - hardly 20 - 30 mtr ahead of me. I still don’t know how it happened - may be the bike guy misjudged the speed of either his bike or the bus while trying to over take another guy - what ever it may, it resulted his black Pulsar hitting the bus and he flying across the road... and his helmet flew before him. Luckily, the guy survived, and was able to sit and take water, and people caught an auto to take him to hospital.
What shocked me, apart for the accident is, though the guy wore a helmet, he never fastened the straps. Now, what is the use of a loose helmet with out straps on? The whole point of helmet is to make sure it helps you to save your head when a collision occurs - but if the strap is not fastened, it is as good as not wearing it.
The Bus driver was shaking, and the furious mob didn’t leave him - but luckily, there where many sane people around, so the moment a guy started beating up the driver, other guys made him stop, but not before the driver getting a heavy blow on his temples by a guy’s helmet. Now, it is one thing to catch hold of the driver if he tries to flee the scene, but when the driver feels guilt (a look of his face and you could have read it) and is genuinely tries to help the victim, do people have to flog him? I know what the driver did was wrong - breaking the one way and all that - but he did take responsibility of the mistake. At last, when I left the scene, the driver and some others where shifting him into an auto to take him to a hospital...

A very simple question to all those who are out there riding their bikes/scooterettes... is it that difficult to properly wear a good helmet? I mean, what is the use of wearing a helmet with the straps off? I have seen many people buying helmets from roadside, or going for the cheapest helmet they can find - all this when they invested tens of thousands of money to buy the bike of their choice... aren’t your life worth the extra couple of hundreds of rupees?

please buy a good ISI standard helmet - don’t go for the looks alone, don’t go and buy the brands like Kimi/Ocra/XYZ... stick to a reputed brand like Steel bird/Vega/MPA or if you can stretch your budget, get a good international brand like GP One/AGV/Shoei/KBX etc...And do wear it properly whenever you take your bike out... there are people out there who care for you... so, if not for you, do this for them...