Search the Community

Some context: Last week I attended a wake of my childhood cousin. We received the news on a morning that he had passed away from a motorcycle accident in the wee hours. There were no eye witnesses at the accident site. He was found unconscious by a police patrol car. Efforts to resuscitate him were made by paramedics but he succumbed to his injuries while en-route to the hospital in an ambulance. Cause of death on the death certificate states multiple injuries and investigations by the Traffic Police will only be concluded 5-6 months from now. Video footage from his onboard bike dash camera showed no other vehicles involved, so we can most likely rule out a hit and run. The family is obviously very distraught as there is no closure with investigations still ongoing. His friends from all over visited him at the wake to say their final goodbyes. On the evening after his cremation, I went to his home together with some of his biker friends. It was then that I got to inspect the motorcycle helmet he was wearing when he crashed. It was wrapped up in a plastic bag. His mum had placed it outside of their house as she was too disconsolate to see it. It was one of those retro-looking half-face helmets with no proper visor, no proper head or chin protection. The helmet was in relatively good shape – no apparent damages, no cracks or obvious skid marks, visor was intact, not broken, albeit bad smelling – you could smell the odor caused by sweat and bacteria. What's taboo? It was an admission by my cousin's friend. The accident helmet was gifted to my cousin by his close friend, another bike friend from their close circle. The helmet had originally belonged to another friend who had lost his life to a fatal bike crash, nearly a year and a half ago. At this point I was shook. I consider myself as not superstitious, not pantang but there is one “belief” I do adhere to quite religiously though when I was still riding a motorcycle. I was always careful never to place my motorcycle helmets on the floor. There is a saying that goes “As goes your helmet, so goes your head” which translates to “If your helmet hits the ground, your head will soon follow”. So I believe its bad luck to have your helmet lying around on the floor. There is no factual basis for this, but if you drop your helmet, then the structural integrity of the shell might be compromised anyway. So to be gifting the accident helmet of a dead person to a living, I cannot. Before their friends left the house, they took with them some of my cousin’s other helmets, including the accident helmet – to sell on Carousell and as for the accident helmet, to return it to the “giver” with the intention to keep or pass it on. I casually remarked not to pass on the helmet to anyone else. Go ahead if you want to keep it as memorabilia but a helmet that has lived through two fatal accidents? I’ll be honest; I felt a little sad having discovered this after my cousin has passed on. Sorry for the wordy text. Just wanted to share my thoughts and perhaps discuss what are your beliefs, practices... Let’s share and discuss.

Do you pick an auspicious day to collect your car? Do you avoid buying car during 7th month? Do you have a lucky car colour that matches your ba gua? Do you try to avoid "X" and "4" on your car plate? Are there some cars you avoid because they sound unlucky? (KIA = Killed in Action, Suzuki = lose it all) I don't bother that much unless the symbolism is very obvious. (for eg, SGH 164X). My SE asked if I wanted to bid for a car plate. I joked that I am not fussy unless the number is something like 4444. To my suprise, she said people actually bid for that number!