7Berkeh – Sara Delavaran: It has been some time now that I have been worrying about the effects of the lack of safe recreation in my small city, Gerash. Indeed, it is fun but also a bit concerning for me when I go for a ride on weekends in the Gerash-Lar highway and see groups of bikers speeding and showing-off without their helmets on. I fear that, God forbid, one of these days I may open Instagram and see some bad news about these gatherings on 7Berkeh! It has happened before, and is very likely to happen again. So, it will be a good idea to prevent it.
Safety rules
I highly doubt it that if people had more amusement options, they would still gather around the bikers just to watch them speed. This is also true about the bikers. I think they would not risk their and everyone’s lives if there were safer fun activities.
However, let’s say no one is going to do anything about creating more amusement options, and even if they do, people would still want to have risky fun activities because, let’s be honest, sometimes serotonin is just not enough and you need that rush of epinephrine (aka adrenaline), too! Still, it is much safer to have specific rules, such as making wearing helmets a necessity, for people participating in these gatherings which include children and women.
Vulnerability concerns
It is highly risky to have women, children and elderly people among watchers. One of the main reasons is that women, children and elderly people cannot react quickly if something goes wrong. They are much more vulnerable to potential dangers. When bikers are speeding, there is always a chance of an accident, and if that happens, older people, women and specially children might not be able to get out of the way fast enough. They are also more likely to get seriously hurt even in a small accident. On top of that, their presence might make it seem like these gatherings are safe and normal, which could encourage more people to join and ignore the risks. Instead of helping prevent dangerous behavior, it might actually make it worse.
What to do?
This part is to people who are in charge:
- Do not prevent fun, prevent danger! Younger generations might not like their city being labeled as a strictly religious in which whenever there is a concert, there is conflict; and running theatres brings out threats! Yet the actual thing that should be prevented is crawling under the skin of the city.
- Finish undergoing projects. Before or at least while adjusting the street-lanes and changing monuments, it would be nice to finish the projects that are promised or in progress for years. For instance, bikers have been promised motorcycle racing tracks for a long time now.
- Give away free safety resources. Plastic helmets are not that expensive and a good mayor can definitely afford them. Plus, them being free makes people more encouraged towards using them. Remember, it is always better late than never.
