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It is sad if people start spending their money on airbags, believing that they are investing in safety, whilst continuing to carry the child on a front-seat lap --- where the air bag itself could kill the child.

How to get the information out to people? Let alone impose and enforce safety regulations. First, someone has to care.

Tragedy is people don't listen to good advices. I told my cousins wife not to carry their kid on her lap while sitting on passenger seat citing the Airbag thing. She just shrugged and said nothing will happen and my cousin laughed at me. :Frustrati
What can one do in such scenarios other than praying nothing should happen to the child.

+ 1 to this. I have numerous experiences on vehicle safety. It includes fastening seat belts, parking properly, keeping children in co driver seat, in between driver and steering wheel, allowing small kids to engage gearshifts, using indicators. Most cases I get a laugh as reply. Quite a few times, I was even made fun of as paranoid person. Sigh. God save such people by giving wisdom.

I've been faced with, "kya ho jayega? " (what will happen?)
To which I've told people, "kuchh hona zaroori hai akal aane ke liye? " (does something have to happen for you to grow a brain?).
Rude but gets the point across.

And it's true. Nothing will happen. Until the day it does :Frustrati

I suppose my parents were visionary to have car seats installed for me and my brother back in the 1980s. In fact, we weren't allowed to sit in front until we were about 9-10. I suppose living overseas made my parents aware, and when we moved to Gurgaon in 1986 from London it just carried on.

It's a pity that more parents don't do it, especially these days when they're so easily available.

Nine years back during my first visit to the USA, my friend told me that after birth of her daughter, before discharge from the hospital, staff from the hospital inspected the car and the baby car seat to check whether the vehicle is suitable for carrying a newborn baby. Few months later their car met with an accident, although the car was heavily damaged, all of them survived without a scratch, as both the adults were belted and the baby was in the baby car seat in proper manner. Exact words of the mother after the accident "agar wo baby car seat pe nahi hoti to mar jaati". But in India, we hardly care about this important safety aspect. Few days back on Mysore Road, I saw four kids and two adults on a motorcycle :banghead:

Happened last night. The car is a Skoda Superb. I shudder to think what would have happened if it were a hatchback. The truck which rear ended it is a borewell digging truck and as we all know these behemoths are heavy.
I think the skoda guy rammed something in front of him because the front of his car was pretty smashed. After the frontal collision this truck rear ended him.
The car was totalled and as usual there was a impression of a head hitting the windshield ...which only means the driver was not wearing a seatbelt.....when will we learn??

The ambulance was already on the scene tending to the injured. No one was sitting in the rear of the Skoda. Thank God!

From the size and design of the rear wheels, I think it's a Rapid. Bore-well trucks are extra heavy weight monsters. The front seats seems to be okay in this crash.

Ignorance as the say is definitely bliss.

In India, not taking safety precautions is mainly due to ignorance/lack of awareness. No one/Few would intentionally compromise the safety of their Kids or themselves if they knew the right way and the consequence of not doing it right. (Eg: seating a child between the steering and driver, carrying a child on the lap in front, not wearing seatbelts, overloading the vehicle with people, the list goes on...)

It is difficult to preach safety to people as everyone have their own point of view, may get offended or simply don't care (have a closed mind and don't want anyone to advice).

We have seen the heavy influx and large scale use of personal vehicles only after post 1991 liberalization and the people are still in the nascent stage as far as safety awareness is concerned compared to the outside world.

The solution:
We (as a nation) can either let this problem of lack of road safety awareness continue endlessly for years to come.
OR
Inculcate road and general safety awareness into the school curriculum and teach our next generation right from childhood about safety so that atleast in the next 15 years hope to see and achieve a more "safety aware population"

The most stupid, ridiculous response I get which irritates me to no end is "Nobody catches you if you are not wearing seat belt" :Frustrati

Majority wear it for police's sake, not theirs.

What's the problem, man?
Let them die. Natural selection.
They're not posing any danger to anyone else but themselves. Ergo, I really don't care. I refuse to move the car unless everyone is buckled up. Purely for the selfish reason that I don't want to be crushed by the rear passengers. And well. Not to have their blood on my hands.

Its really surprising to get such comments even from very sensible, usually purist, law-abiding citizens. Specially when they dissuade you from doing the right thing.

I went to this uncle of mine who lives in the other end of Pune, I had to then go out for some chore, so took his activa for the same, when I was picking up my cousin's helmet, my uncle said "Jya jaroorat hai,yahan koi nahi pakadta" (No need for helmet, there is no checking in this area).

He also had opinions when I was looking for a car with 6 airbags, his exact words were "airbags pe itne paise kharch karke kya fayda, jab accident hona hai ho hi jata hai" (whats the use spending so much for a car with airbags, if an accident has to take place, it will) :Frustrati

The problem is that the drivers of other vehicles involved in accident, regardless of fault, will be blamed for the deaths.

As in so many other things in India, this kind of education is the key. And it will take 15-20 years for it to have effect. The frightening thing about this root cause/solution of all our problems is that there is no sign of this 20 year clock having even started to tick down the time to a better place for all.

In the meantime, we can start by being the change we want to see. Including educating our children about civics and obligations/duties to society in addition to this subject, that is in many ways a subset of this.