KARACHI, Sept 7: Helmet sale has surpassed the sale of new motorcycles as the Sindh government’s campaign to bound bike riders to wear helmet now enters sixth day. Many dealers at Akbar Road, who used to do a roaring bike sale business, now appear much busier in selling helmets instead of bikes. “The buyer first chooses helmet and then a bike,” a dealer said.
Some dealers have put on the bikes at the godowns and other places and have turned up their shops into full-fledged helmet stores in view of burgeoning demand from the buyers whose presence is rising with the passage of time.
In view of the growing demand, a number of roadside stalls have emerged. Some stalls have been set up close to the traffic police pickets or sub-stations.
Akbar Road, often dubbed as the main hub of old and new bikes, now wears a festive look owing to huge presence of helmet hunters instead of cheap Chinese assembled bikes.
“I used to sell two to five helmets prior to Sept 1. Now I sell 200 to 250 helmets a day,” Shuja Salman of Arif Traders at Akbar Road said who also deals in bikes.
He said that people, having old or a new bike, are now more concerned to have a helmet at any cost. “We see many cases daily when many bike riders say that they are here to have a helmet first instead of flour and other essential items in order to avoid any harassment at the hand of traffic police,” he said.
Currently, he said that the market is now over supplied with the helmets (locally produced and Chinese). This is the main reason of keeping the prices intact so far, otherwise, any gap in supplies would have outstripped demand, resulting in tremendous price hike.
“I think that the market has at least one week stocks. The way people flock at the Akbar Road in view of ongoing helmet checking drive on the roads – it may cause shortage,” he said.
He said that over 100,000 Chinese helmets were at the port awaiting clearance while some local producers had maintained the pace of their production to meet the rising demand. He added that second hand helmets had disappeared from the market which used to sell at Rs150 to Rs200.
Disagreeing the way people are being forced to wear helmet, he said what the government had done so far in providing any security to the people on the roads. Fifty-year-old smoke emitting buses, LPG fitted taxi and rickshaws, no traffic rules, dilapidated roads and frequent traffic jams were enough to cause invisible damage to human organs.
Meanwhile, a permanent helmet seller said that he used to sit idle ahead of Sept 1. “Now 400-500 helmets are being sold a day as compared to one to five previously,” he said adding that the rush is set to pick up pace as the campaign of traffic police intensifies.
Mohammad Sabir Shaikh of Sitara Auto Impex said that out of 700,000 to 750,000 bikes on the city roads, only 200,000 persons wore helmets, while 500,000 to 550,000 persons were yet to wear helmet which meant that a huge demand was still to be met.
In the entire Karachi, around 8,000 to 10,000 helmets were being sold daily as compared to around 100 to 200 a day prior to Sept 1, he said.
The Managing Director of Ulbricht’s Pakistan Limited, Iqbal Hussain, claimed that 40 to 50 per cent had got helmets but still a big demand existed. Being a local producer since 1978, he said that his company produced 2,000 helmets daily as compared to very few numbers ahead of Sept 1.
President Karachi Motorcycle Dealers Association (KMDA), M. Naeem Qureshi, said that despite boosting demand frequent local and imported supplies had kept the prices of Chinese and local helmets at Rs350 to Rs550 and Rs225 to Rs275 respectively.
“I do not think that the prices will go up in future as supplies are ample,” he said, adding that the association will try hard to keep the prices intact.
DIG Traffic Falak Khursheed told Dawn that 30,673 people had been fined in the last six days for not wearing helmets and Rs1.533 million was recovered as a fine at Rs50 per bike.
“Now 40 to 45 per cent people wear helmet as compared to 25 to 30 per cent on Sept 2 and five per cent before the Sept 1,” he claimed. Registered bikes with Karachi number plates were estimated to range between 500,000 and 600,000 units. The share of bike population was estimated 40 per cent out of total vehicles plying on roads.
He said that there was no specific target given to the traffic police to grab the bike riders or net a targeted amount. Besides, the department was carrying out the campaign with the same police force strength available. However, he added, this time the focus was more on helmet checking and signal jumping.
He reckoned that there had been no culture among people to follow rules and regulations. But this campaign had somehow created awareness.
