REVILLA SPONSORS MANDATORY HELMET BILL

In a bid to implement safe motorcycle riding nationwide, Senator Bong Revilla formally pushed for the passage of his Mandatory Helmet Bill that would oblige all drivers and back riders of motorcycles, including scooters, to wear standard quality helmets.

In his sponsorship speech yesterday (Tuesday, March 3) , Revilla pointed out that even the Department of Health (DOH) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has expressed concern on the increasing number of motorcycle accidents in the country for the last three years.

According to the senator, there are about 3.5 million motorcycles in the Philippines , comprising 45 percent of all registered vehicles in the country and together with this is the alarming statistics of growing incidents of road mishaps involving motorcycles.

Citing figures gathered by the Traffic Operations Center of the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) from January to December 2008, he said motorcycles have the highest fatality rate with 106 motorcycles involved, or 28.19 percent of the total fatal accidents.

A report of the Traffic Management Group (TMG) showed that out of the total 14,202 traffic accidents in year 2004, 3,010 or 21 percent involved motorcycles. The figures rose to 24 percent or 2,798 out of 11,425 accidents in 2005 and in the first two months of 2006, the TMG recorded a total of 485 motorcycle accidents out of the total 1,364 accidents, which accounted for 35 percent of the total traffic accidents.

"The World Health Organization maintains that wearing a helmet is the single most effective way of reducing head injuries and fatalities resulting from motorcycle crashes. Wearing a helmet has been shown to decrease the risk and severity of injuries among motorcyclists by about 70 percent and the likelihood of deaths by almost 40 percent," said Revilla, chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Services.

The lawmaker also bared that the Philippines' neighbour country, Thailand, gained a 40 percent reduction in head injuries among motorcyclists and a 24 percent drop in motorcyclist deaths after a legislation passed in the north-eastern province of Khon Kaen to make helmet use mandatory. "There is also a considerable long list of other countries which have laws on mandatory helmet use, such as the US, Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Singapore, and 31 others. The first motorcycle helmet use law in the world took effect on January 1, 1961, in Victoria , Australia ," he also disclosed.

Under Senate Bill 1863 authored by Revilla, all motorcycle riders, the driver and the back rider, must wear standard quality helmets while driving motorcycles, whether on long or short drives, at any time of the day, in any type of road or highway. Exempted are drivers of tricycles.

"Some camps argue that a legislative enactment is no longer necessary, and that what is needed is simply a strengthened motorcycle safety education program for riders to consider their own safety. They assert that enough space must be given for self-regulation. If we follow this argument, then we should not have passed the seatbelt law which has the same purpose and intent of this proposal," Revilla stressed.

As a show of force and sign of support to Revilla's Bill, officials and members of the Motorcycle Philippines Federation (MCPF), the nationwide umbrella organization of different motorbikers and riders clubs in the country.