A Stitch in Time Saves a 'Life'

Key Points:

The pillion rider treats the helmet as the driver’s burden and carries his own in his hand like a shopping bag.
In motorcycle crashes, head injuries are the killers and the passenger lands no softer than the driver.
The Punjab Highway Patrol’s Faisalabad campaign, led by SP Muhammad Tariq Malik, tells riders: two riders, two helmets.

FAISALABAD: At every traffic signal in this city, the same drama repeats itself daily. A traffic warden raises his hand. Helmets hanging from elbows and handlebars rise, as if by magic, onto heads.

The signal turns green. The warden is left behind. The helmets come off again, back to the elbow, back to the handlebar, back to being luggage.

Nobody performs this trick more faithfully than the man on the back seat. Ask him why he is not wearing a helmet and he will look genuinely surprised. He is not the one driving.

The helmet, in his view, is the driver’s uniform, not the passenger’s protection.

It is as if a crash politely asked who was holding the handlebars before striking and spared the gentleman who was only sitting behind.

His arguments have been polished by years of daily use. A helmet ruins the hair. It feels hot in the sun. It looks odd. People stare. Above all, the journey is only two minutes long.

His helmet travels in his hand like a shopping bag, while his head, the one part of him that no surgeon can replace, travels bare.

It is this passenger the Punjab Highway Patrol has now turned to. The Faisalabad region’s new awareness poster carries a short line in Urdu, ‘two riders, two helmets’. Underneath sits an even shorter truth: the lives of both are precious.

The campaign is led by the region’s SP, Muhammad Tariq Malik. The patrol’s mobile education unit is carrying the message onto the roads instead of waiting for offenders to arrive at a police desk.

Punjab Highway Patrolling Police Faisalabad Region helmet awareness poster SP Muhammad Tariq Malik two riders two helmets — The Punjab Highway Patrolling Police Faisalabad Region awareness poster: two riders, two helmets

A police force that teaches before it fines is policing as it should be done.

An officer who stands in the dust and heat to explain a strap and a buckle is standing there, on behalf of their families.

The lesson itself is not complicated. The physics behind it allows no negotiation. In motorcycle crashes, head injuries are the killers.

A passenger thrown from the back seat lands no softer than the man in front of him.

Speed does not check who held the licence. The road does not ask who was driving. It makes no distinction between the rider and his guest when both of them fall.

What follows an unprotected head injury is rarely a short story. It is hospital corridors and operations a family cannot afford.

It is a young earner lying in bed for months while the house sinks into debt. It is a mother waiting at a door for a son who left home on a journey of two minutes.

Hair grows back. A head does not.

Against all that, the price of protection is small. A helmet costs a few hundred rupees and takes two seconds to put on.

It demands no form, no fee and no queue. It only has to be on the head, not in the hand, on the day the two minutes go wrong.

The back-seat passenger may still worry about his hair. But he should know one thing. Hair grows back. A head does not. The people waiting for him at home are not in love with his hairstyle; they are waiting for him.

So the next time you climb onto the back of a motorcycle in this city, take the second helmet and wear it. Two riders, two helmets, two precious lives.

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Author Profile

Saleem Mubarak: Award-winning investigative journalist with 20+ years of experience across Pakistan's leading news organisations, including 15+ years as Senior Staff Correspondent at Dawn. Driven by a lifelong passion for investigative journalism and human rights, with a proven record of hard-hitting stories that forced official action — from hospital negligence and illegal land grabs to harassment probes and social injustice. He is the recipient of the K.C. Kulish International Award for Excellence in Print Journalism.