Because of that mistaken belief, many riders simply buy the cheapest helmet
they can find. These are often sub-standard in quality.
In the Philippines, the "Motorcycle Helmet Act of 2009," also known as Republic
Act 10054, was passed. This is an act that requires all motorcycle riders to wear
helmets while driving and imposes penalties on violators. It was signed by President
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in March 2010 and states that all motorcycle riders,
including their passengers, must always wear the standard protective helmet whether
traveling a long or short distance on any road or highway. It also stated that the DTI
will issue instructions for motorcycle riders that include specifications for the
standard protective helmet.
Thus, to ensure helmet quality, the Bureau of Product Standards (BPS) and the
Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) shall conduct mandatory testing on all
domestically manufactured and imported motorcycle helmets. Prior to the sale and
distribution of their products, all manufacturers and importers of standard protective
motorcycle helmets must obtain a PS license or ICC (Batin et al., 2017).
Those who do not comply with Republic Act 10054 face the following penalties:
For the first offense, the violator must pay 1,500.00 pesos; for the second offense,
3,000.00 pesos; for the third offense, 5,000.00 pesos; and for the fourth and
subsequent offenses, 10,000.00 pesos in addition to the confiscation of their driver's
license (Batin et al., 2017).
According to the data collected or result of the survey, the indicator no.6 has
the 2nd highest weighted mean with a mean of 3.08, which indicates that it is much
complied with "Tricycle drivers being exempted from using helmet”. Under the
Motorcycle Helmet Act of 2009, Section 4, drivers of tricycles shall be exempted from
complying with the mandatory wearing of motorcycle helmets as provided in this Act.
Moreover, as per interviewed the respondents stated that tricycle drivers don't need to
wear helmets because their motorcycles are already reinforced with steel cages.
Wherein driver has a roof and windshield so in case of a collision, drivers and
passengers are more protected as compared to motorcycles. Thus, they are no longer
required by law because they are no longer 2 wheeled vehicles. This simply proves that
tricycles drivers are not required and hassled to wear helmets and they are not
covered by the ordinance or they are exempted from the ordinance. This is
corroborative to the study of Bachani (2017), stating that only two-wheeled vehicle
riders are obligated to wear helmets.
Meanwhile, the indicator that obtained the lowest mean is “Riders must wear a
helmet whether it is a long or short drive on any type of road” with 2.53 interpreted as
much complied in which this connotes that B.S Criminology Motorcycle rider students
in MPSPC are much complying to the helmet law.
Analysis on this finding would break their complaint because, there are times
that they disregard wearing a helmet. According to one of the respondents, they
disregard wearing helmet whether long or short ride when they are in a rush, if the
weather is too hot, burden to carry a helmet especially on a short ride and if there is
no presence of a police officer or LTO. This is consistent with the study of Muhammad
Adnan and UnebGazder(2019) which states that the non-compliance to wearing of
helmet is a burden to carry a helmet, vision, hearing problem, vision, hearing problem
and hot weather are major reasons because of which helmet is not worn regularly by
riders.
Also, according to Hasan et al, 2022, the majority do not wear helmets when
they ride for a short trip, this is followed during hot weather, when they don’t
anticipate meeting police when riding on a local road. The leading reason for not
wearing a helmet is related to the comfortability of wearing a helmet. Around 22%
claim that they do not wear helmet because they ride on low-speed local road and
cause suffocation, users feel asphyxiated when they wear helmets.