Lack of Safety in Indian Cars – A Serious Concern

[navnit013]

Re: Lack of Safety in Indian Cars – A Serious Concern?

@Tornado,

A reduction in speed on a wet surface would have been more useful in this condition.

Have you guys seen Volvo multi axle busses flying through even in heavy rain. They are equipped with ABS. They can stop on a dime in wet surfaces even. But you never know, whats round the corner.

I've always said and will always say this, safety features active and passive, makes a driver blunt and feel immune. No matter what safety features, once the vehicle is doing speeds above the abilities of the driver, then its a ticking time bomb.

The best safety feature in a car is the one behind the wheel. The rest are only to salvage the situation.

 

[Gurrala74]

Re: Lack of Safety in Indian Cars – A Serious Concern?

@Tornado,

A reduction in speed on a wet surface would have been more useful in this condition.

Have you guys seen Volvo multi axle busses flying through even in heavy rain. They are equipped with ABS. They can stop on a dime in wet surfaces even. But you never know, whats round the corner.

I've always said and will always say this, safety features active and passive, makes a driver blunt and feel immune. No matter what safety features, once the vehicle is doing speeds above the abilities of the driver, then its a ticking time bomb.

The best safety feature in a car is the one behind the wheel. The rest are only to salvage the situation.

Agree with you, but there are recent cases where those multi axle volvo buses got toppled in AP and God knows the reason for the drivers abnormal handling.

According to me safety concern is more important than the safety equipment as yesterday it was unwarranted to drive in 140kmph in such heavy rain where the visibility was very poor, as driver him self admitted this

 

[Tornado]

Re: Lack of Safety in Indian Cars – A Serious Concern?

@gurrala , loved the sentence , safty concern is more important than safty equipment.

 

[amitdaivadnya]

Re: Lack of Safety in Indian Cars – A Serious Concern?

Sir, I think government should promote more of public transport. The public transport should also have highest safety features . people, who does not have high budgets for the cars with safety features should buy quality used cars if their journeys are mostly on highways. govt should cut down some taxes for the safety features so that it should be a bit affordable. The families who drive mostly in city need not opt for highest safety features. they can go along with driver airbag and ABS

 

[Tornado]

Re: Lack of Safety in Indian Cars – A Serious Concern?

people, who does not have high budgets for the cars with safety features should buy quality used cars if their journeys are mostly on highways. S

What a way to post a opening post !, you came with a bang, deserves a reputation point, welcome aboard.

 

[nozzlering]

Re: Lack of Safety in Indian Cars – A Serious Concern?

Given a option to buy a car for Rs 2000 less without seat belts, 70% of Indians would opt for it. Indians are always cost conscious and they would not mind getting off a feature or two to reduce the cost. So why keep an option! Just make each and every car with ABS and basic airbag (atleast for driver).
But the biggest safety concern on Indian cars is the driver itself, IMO. Majority of drivers on Indian roads lack road discipline. Unless and until this is improved any amount of safety feature in our cars will be useless. And I dont think it is going to change in many years to come.

 

[Tornado]

Re: Lack of Safety in Indian Cars – A Serious Concern?

No need to make it compulsory.I have posted same views elsewhere , doing it again here.
It's the car manufacture's fault (crime in true words), it's the money spinning attitude. They provide not so important comfort features (powerwindows, electrical mirrors, ICE, remote lock etc) in mid varients at buyer's cost. They provide safety features (abs , airbags) only in top end (costlier than mid) models thus they compel the safety concerned buyer to purchase the comfort features , even if he is intrested only in safety features.(if you want life and limb safe)

Also they disallow the low end (devoid of safety and many comfort features) varient to upgrade with abs airbags. If kaput air bag of a bad accident car can be replaced by the service centre , then why the hell a brand new low end varient car is not upgradable?

Policy makers are just watching on the dirty bussiness, not bothered for life and limb of major segment of tax payers (car buyers)

If seat belts, head lamp adjusment device is compulsory even in low end varient, , why airbags abs are not compulsory in a mid varient instead of comfort features?

IMO airbags and ABS should be made available as optional safty accsesories across all varients including base varient right from nano to bentley by law. Owner should be allowed to choose no. of PAB as per his financial condition at various stages.

Life is the cheap and cheapest thing in our country . The population is already exploded.We car buyers pay so many types of taxes (income, vat, exise prof....)including car regn. and tolls on the basis of which the the nation building ( roads, railways, bridges, midday meals , food security for 67 cr population..)takes place. But the rulers know that the car buyers are the people who think and then vote. And they don't want such type of voters ,hence they are least bothered about our safty becoz they know if one tax paying car traveler dies
he will be replaced by some body else , such is the growth of population . So the rulers keep on pampering the pathetic attitude of automakers towards common car buyer's safty.

It is high time that car buyers should for a pressure group.
And I am sad to find that we are discussing this in a country where even head restraints are not coumpulsory OE fitment.

 

[navnit013]

Re: Lack of Safety in Indian Cars – A Serious Concern?

The thing is the definition of "SAFETY" should change first.

I've come across people who think driving fast is cause of all the accidents in our roads. Thats plain bull****. Driving fast is not equal to reckless/rash driving. You can be very slow and yet be reckless/rash.

Driving in the opposite lane with the headlights on and at snails pace is considered safe. Parking the car on the road to avoid dirty tyres is considered safe. 10 people in an Alto (oh no its not an exaggeration) is considered safe. Thundering down the highway in a, loaded to the brim, Force Toofan is considered safe. Riding on the footpath is considered safe and walking on the road is considered safe.

We cant just blame the administrators for all the mishaps that happen on our roads. We are the ones to blame too. If every one of us stick to the basic driving (road usage be it walking or riding) rules, 70% of all the accidents will reduce.

 

[AppU]

Re: Lack of Safety in Indian Cars – A Serious Concern?

Just Found this Video, Have a look at this Guys

Top Gear new season crushing the Tata indica (city rover) - YouTube

 

[saideb79]

Re: Lack of Safety in Indian Cars – A Serious Concern.

Guys, i am staring this new thread, keeping in mind that now a days we usually consider FE and cost as main aspects, while deciding for a new car. The idea of this thread is put into my mind by my friend with username @Rightnow.

According to me a safe car should not only be safe during a crash but also be safe to avoid a crash using its safety equipment in best possible way. That is why i feel europian cars are much better than other ones in this aspect.
The main reason for my this conclusion is a short drive with new dezire, this drive actually set me to start this thread followed by fellow TAI member.

This is actually my major problem

One more thing, the root of this thread is related to one of my ownership review's post, so here is the linkhttp://www.theautomotiveindia.com/forums/ownership-reviews/7789-experience-my-italian-ride-fiat-punto-90hp-5.html#post193762


I am also considering these incidents

*one of neighbor died in a car accident (driving omni some 10 years back). just because he was driving at 80 kmph and some suv did pushed it a little bit from side and it took 4 overhead turns.

Uncle died on the spot, aunty was serious, and son is now a handicap, only daughter survived safe just because she was in multiple layer blanket.

I don't think it would have been a major accident if they would have been travelling in their amby. (Its not about weight, polo, punto, vento, rapid, linea are not very much heavy cars.)

* I think that if people don't die in many other countries, when a car crash, even at 100 - 150 miles/hour. Then why do people die in india in low speeding cars. That is just because of these profit making companies and government not making any strict rules of safety. Things like abs, ebd, airbag etc, should be made compulsory in every variant.


*Swift and dezire are not cheap cars, then why do we expect sub standard material in these cars. We have polo, punto in the same range, if fiat and volkswagan can have robust vehicles then why can't maruti. They have such a huge client base, they can source engine from some other company(don't wanna take name) to secure their clients. Isn't it their responsibility to give robust cars to us.



But in this thread i wanna make you people put up their thoughts, related to safety factor of their cars, not only based on the list of safety equipments of their cars provided by the manufacturer, but by your own experiences with your cars.

I also wanna answer this

Just look at the crash test reports of punto, now you can say that swift has also been tested, but buddy here is the twist, punto in india has been sold like any other country of the world(product somewhat same worldwide) but you can easily assume that the thing is not same with most of the cars being sold in india.

I request everyone
Please do not hurt anyone's sentiments, and do not think that i or any other member is bashing your lovely car, accept positive as well as negative aspects of your vehicle. Do not panic.

This is about safety. There is nothing precious than life whether its yours or mine.

Hi Vivekrj

It would be better if you can classify the cars separately listed above as per their category such as hatch back, sedan, SUV etc. Just a thought...comparing swift with vento wouldn't justify the results.

Thanks

 

[VivekRj.Dieselhead]

Re: Lack of Safety in Indian Cars – A Serious Concern.

Hi Vivekrj

It would be better if you can classify the cars separately listed above as per their category such as hatch back, sedan, SUV etc. Just a thought...comparing swift with vento wouldn't justify the results.

Thanks

Buddy i was triying to do the same but there are some limitations in the forum. But i think safety has nothing to do with the segment of a car. Basic safety should be there in every car.

I started this thread after driving my friend's Swift Dezire, it had pathetic braking even at 50kmph (i don't intend to offend the respective owners please understand). I concluded that my Indica DLS1.4 and Xeta 1.4 costing some 3.6 lacs and 4 lacs(on road, first totalled and another sold) was having better braking power even at 100kmph, saying this after experiancing.

 

[Bopanna]

Re: Lack of Safety in Indian Cars – A Serious Concern.

ET article about lack of safety features in small cars in India

One disturbing trend ...

Maruti has seen the share of its top-end variants, with all safety features, in its sales decline from 20% to 5% in the last few years. Toyota is seeing a similar trend.

More Maruti (and Toyota) customers are opting for lower variants and preferring to spend money on bling/comfort features instead of safety.

But overall industry projections show that penetration of safety features like ABS and airbags is projected to grow by 20% by 2018

 

[IndicaDLS2002]

Re: Lack of Safety in Indian Cars – A Serious Concern.

Some safety related newsletters from HDFC bank auto finance.

HDFC BANK

Never knew you could have sensors inside the tyres itself to tell you the pressure on the road! Anyone used this before? quite interesting gadgets. see link below.
HDFC BANK

 

[Godfather]

Re: Lack of Safety in Indian Cars – A Serious Concern.

Some safety related newsletters from HDFC bank auto finance.

HDFC BANK

Never knew you could have sensors inside the tyres itself to tell you the pressure on the road! Anyone used this before? quite interesting gadgets. see link below.
HDFC BANK

Yes buddy these modern technologies are very much present in high end luxury cars and that's one of the reasons for charging a premium. Regarding TPMS yes these are now coming as OEM fitted (eg: XUV5OO) as well as after market solution.

Regarding the poll, i have a feeling that its not wise to compare a hatchback with a sedan so this poll would have made more sense had the comparisons been drawn between similar segments like safest car in hatch/sedan/SUV etc.

 

[DJ bro]

Re: Lack of Safety in Indian Cars – A Serious Concern.

Most of the people here have a very wrong perception that "ALL MARUTI CARS ARE UNSAFE"!
Well, that is totally wrong!
I agree they are not as strong as a VW or Skoda or Fiat, but not all cars from Suzuki are weak and fragile...
Alto and Omni are examples of appalling safety due to low cost targets...
but now have a look at the Swift, Dzire, Ertiga and rest of all the products other than Alto K10 and Omni... they are much much better and safer because of better construction, metals and stiffness factor...