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In a move to tame reckless drivers of long haul inter-state buses, government wants to make it mandatory for all such vehicles to have black box, speed controllers and seat belts for passengers.
The black box will record the driving behaviour of the man on the wheels and also record whether the driver worked beyond the permissible hours in a day. "During the investigation of three Volvo crash cases, it came to our notice that the buses were in high speed when the accidents took place. So, these buses need to have the speed limiting devices," said a senior road transport ministry official. ...
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Originally Posted by anjan_c2007 Yes Sreedharan, if I state my viewpoint harping upon the safety, because even the governments of A.P. and Karnataka had found fault with these buses, personal allegations are levelled against me, its not a healthy debate.
The two governments had taken these buses off the road for quite sometime and I had interacted with users, both in Bangalore and Hyderabad during my recent visits to both the metros in December 2013.The Transport Commissioners' offices of the two states are not foolish to take such a tough decision, putting thousands of commuters into unlimited hardships.I had read news reports in the local papers of Bangalore and Hyderabad that had described the fire incidents right from the Mumbai- Ahmedabad Volvo bus fire more than five years ago followed by many such incidents.
Some of us tend to lose reasoning while engaging in a debate. After all, there are ways of putting our viewpoints for or against the enumerated points in any thread, without leveling unsubstantiated, illogical and mischievous, criminal personal allegations over the integrity of anyone.
I think this topic on Volvo buses is much debatable and debates only bring out viewpoints and counter-viewpoints, finally emerging into some logical conclusions.
The moot point is that the buses come with sealed windows and are made by the company that is known to be No. 1 in automobile safety since many decades. Emergency exits are unknown to all passengers and even the ubiquitous hammer to break open the glass in such cases is not properly kept so that each passenger knows about its location. Passengers have been burnt to death in the dead of the night while asleep in most cases. Thats definitely tragic. I am not sure who is to blame- Volvo, the operator or the government?
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World's no 1 in safety is purely a market talk and these accidents are true to the core that there is some homework to be done by Volvo. Let them be greatest safety on wheels anywhere, but quite sure they are not in India. With just 5000 Volvo's in India and of which atleast 1000 buses are city buses, the accident rate to the volume on road is alarming. There is no point in repeatedly speaking, whatever happened is because of reckless driving, reason being no driver will dare to drive and kill others with his life is under risk.
Coming the point of safety, Volvo has not done anything more than what CMVR and ARAI has asked for. And whenever executives from Volvo speak, they defend them only with the fact that they comply to all regulations and nothing they have over ruled. (Good and congratulations Sir, plz take your seat along with everybody. Plz don’t harp as im the safest). Then there is nothing Volvo can take credit for offering the safest seat. Also the investigations from respective states involved Volvo too. It was along with them these were concluded and there is nothing wrong to blame state Govt.
Then they are yet an another manufacturer making yet an another bus. No point in seeing a video in YouTube demonstrating the safety, and buying travelling in something different, thinking they are safe. They cannot claim anything to term them as the safest or at to the level of pinnacle of safety (which many people market here). We are happy they are better( just because they have FUPS which is again not available in all models) but still a long way to be the Best and to exclude them from Cause.
In the issue of side glass, only alternate glasses are breakable and rest are not. When we are panic we do not know which to break and waste time in breaking a wrong window. Coupled with the limited availability of hammers, precious time is killed. There are lots of open points still in the bus body, like usage of heavy adhesives inside saloon for pasting upholstery, side pillars, panes etc. The plywood’s are not with fire resistive. The PVC mat used is again combustible. There is no additional safety in the engine compartment like fire suppression system (which is available by others elsewhere).
Wrt speed locking, its impossible to open a speed locked coach by operator. Its Volvo which locks the coach at factory and its Volvo which releases the same upon requested by operators post registration.
Coming to the same point of fuel tank location, when questions were asked about its locations it was answered saying, they are same as rest of world and only here it’s questioned. If that's the case, all new coaches in Volvo like B11R have a steel tank and is located ahead of rear axle inside the luggage compartment unlike B7R and B9R. Why was this design change initiated with in Volvo? Did Volvo encounter similar problems elsewhere? We do not know? or that was a continuous improvement? If so what was the flaw in the current design? We do not know?
What we all know is Volvo doesn't (better to term as Can’t make mistake) make mistake and is only authorities, drivers, owners, NHAI and finally people who speak against Volvo.
And yes,
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(My point of contention is - Im not eliminating Volvo from the cause and they do have role in fire accidents. Along with them other issues are still there)