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17th January 2021, 20:37 | #61 |
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Infractions: 0/1 (5) | Re: How important is our concern for safety? There's been some good discussion on this thread. All manufacturers are moving towards safer cars than before, with some home-grown brands like Tata Motors and Mahindra leading. This is good news, even to non-Tata product owners because a rising tide raises all boats. A so-called 'unsafe' Baleno gets a 3-star rating in the European NCAP test, and agreed, it could be better, but it would still be as safe/safer than erstwhile premium cars from 15-20 years ago. And people are quite vocal about safety, promoting cars with higher safety ratings. Good. Now let's take this same energy and ask for safer roads. Let's educate people riding 2 wheelers on the importance of helmets. Let's encourage families of 4+ to buy the cheapest car they can afford and stop sharing one 2-wheeler. Let's teach people to not drive with dazzling high beams on city roads, blinding other road users. If we are lobbying with manufacturers for safer cars, let's at the same time ask for Toyota and Maruti(amongst others) to change the headlight/brakelight pattern to stop inadvertently blinding fellow road users.(related thread - https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/stree...motorists.html (OEM LED/HID headlights - Do they cause issues to other motorists?)) Better maintained roads(some potholes are frighteningly deep!), better lighting, drilling in traffic discipline to prospective learner drivers. These are things the government could do to ensure safer roads. All of these would lead to safer roads, and none of this requires abusing people who have bought so-called 'unsafe' cars. The 'vote-with-money' idea, whilst good in theory, probably won't affect our road safety as directly as any of these measures would. Is safety of the car an important factor? Yes, definitely. Both of our cars have the highest safety rating and are decked with the top-tier safety features of their class at the time of purchase. But that doesn't guarantee I'll be safe on the roads - my driving, the driving of everyone I encounter, and the condition of the roads are far more important factors to determine that. We as a community can act on at least two of those three factors, and proactively choose the roads we drive on and other such factors. At the end of the day the safety and well-being of everyone on the road matters, regardless of their choice of vehicle. Last edited by rkv_2401 : 17th January 2021 at 20:38. |
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17th January 2021, 20:55 | #62 |
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| Re: How important is our concern for safety? I recall an incident when I booked a cab for my journey from Nashik to Pune. Me and wife were seated at the back but couldn’t find seat belts. When enquired with driver, he was literally shocked that we are asking for seat belts at rear. He had got seat belts tucked under the seat covers (cushions) since it was bit uncomfortable for some passengers. |
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17th January 2021, 23:07 | #63 |
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| Re: How important is our concern for safety? Well for a nation with one of the highest casualties in road accidents and fatalities, safety should definitely be made the talking point. IMHO cars being bashed for safety have multiple reasons: 1. Manufacturers providing 6 airbags, crying hoarse about super High strength steel, new platforms etc. Only to perform poorly in the crash tests. 2. Calling out GNCAP, as a private company with biased interests which have no bearing in the country. 3. Companies as such prioritising feel good features like wireless charging, leather seats, premium sound systems instead of safety. Well this is one site where I can rant about Indians not worrying about safety because it genuinely concerns me. As long as there is no personal attack. What is the harm in expressing your displeasure? In fact, you can see in most of the threads multiple people have written on how their decision making has changed to prioritise safety. Is this not for the better? After visiting western countries, I feel extremely unnerved at how our chalta hai attitude is injurious to us and others. So IMHO, no amount of attention is too much attention for safety in a nation which is just careless. |
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18th January 2021, 05:53 | #64 | |
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| Re: How important is our concern for safety? Quote:
It's your money, your family, your life and your car after all. I wonder if it's because there's actually some underlying truth that's buried under this overzealous vigilantism and trolling on the internet. Hence, people are forced to justify their choices to themselves, their families and the trolls? My two cents worth of view is that, ignore the trolls, memes and negativity in general. Look for the deeper underlying truth and see what you could learn and improve in the future and don't fret about what you could have done in the past. I mean, you could choose to take that long winding corner at 60kmph instead of 90kmph in your car with a questionable safety rating. You could ask all your passengers to belt up whether you are travelling inter-city or to the school. You could use child seats or booster seats for your children. These are small changes that lower your risk and increase your road safety. As a nation, the value of life needs to improve by several folds before conversations around road safety are wholistic. I can only hope that day comes soon and that's not the end of it again. It'll keep evolving for the better. | |
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18th January 2021, 10:18 | #65 |
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| Re: How important is our concern for safety? Personally I give greater importance to the depth of engineering and overall quality in a car rather than NCAP score alone. A tin can (a light weight car) is more fuel efficient and has better power/ton, hence better performance. Cars like Etios, which are light, have yet managed decent safety score because of Toyota's engineering. So, light weight car itself is not a problem, a poorly engineered car is. |
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18th January 2021, 10:19 | #66 |
BHPian | Re: How important is our concern for safety? This is a great topic & thanks for bringing it up. Being in the industry, I definitely aspire one day all the cars sold in our country to be safe for Occupants & pedestrians. But lets not make this a topic of disgrace to people who have had spent their life's savings to afford a car. We should not forget that in a developing country like India, where the automobile market is still dominated by 2 wheelers as compared to 4 wheelers, cant even be termed as a safe mode of transport. But as rightly pointed out, can we guarantee that our Public transports are safe enough? This is a very very broad topic, the deeper you dig, you will find flaws in every corner. Be it infra or be it basic traffic rules knowledge, we are way behind in the world. These Memes running around on Tesla's entry into India and how its AI needs overhauling is absolute reality. We still don't have a structured examination for Driving License. So lets not be bullish about the things which are slow in getting standardized in a developing nation like ours, rather embrace it and educate and feel happy we are in right direction. |
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18th January 2021, 10:42 | #67 | |
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| Re: How important is our concern for safety? Quote:
That being said, encouraging people to buy an unsafe car when you can buy a safer one not a logic I subscribe to. Let's take KIA as an example. They know how to make safe cars. They have clearly made it for other countries. They charge a bomb for their cars. To sell a compromised version in India is clearly cheating the Indian public and getting away with it because they can afford to do it. This does not have to be an either-or scenario. Given the right incentives, every manufacturer can reach a minimum safety standard. We only encourage them when we say life is not safe anywhere, why worry about cars. Well, we are not hurtling at 100 KMPS on a highway with minimal control of other people's actions in any of the scenarios were mentioned. Imagine car manufactures making the same argument you made. We would be shouting at the rooftops for boycotting their cars. Will, we not vaccinate our children because they can get hurt other ways? Will we stop installing fire alarms because there is danger everywhere? Will we stop eating medicines because human life is anyway finite? What about no stop-loss while investing in equity investing because it's an inherently risky process? I owned a Ritz and now own an XUV 300. I love the Seltos rests next to my parking often admire the proportions. I always wish the owner a lifetime of happy experiences but that does not mean both of us do not wish that KIA built a safer car or Mahindra build a car with better usability and features. Every owner can analyze the data and make choices. We can all respect the idea that I would prefer a 3-star car that has a ton of features to a five-star car that is not well proportioned. However to justify that by saying that many things in life carry an inherent risk so why make a safe choice is stretching it too far. | |
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18th January 2021, 11:53 | #68 |
BHPian | Re: How important is our concern for safety? I don't know if somebody has already said this, but it's not about shaming anyone for buying 'UNSAFE' car but it's all about making them aware. We, all auto enthusiasts including BHP-ians, have been doing our duty of increasing the awareness about safety in masses but at the same time many of us tip the scale only in favor of features or resale value or service-ability. Safety should always comes first, which rarely happens. Safety is NOT controlled by price of the car, this is very well known fact by now. The topic of safety comes into picture when almost all Global manufacturers like Kia, Suzuki, Hyundai etc. manufacture cars in same plant have different specifications just to improvise KMPL or Features at the cost of safety. We know compared to some global markets, these companies are selling their cars at premium prices and still shortchanging customers with one or the other. Unless the demand reflects people's awareness about safety this won't change. Heard's mentality can be only broken by making some louder noise. I am not encouraging targeted shaming of individuals but platform like T-BHP can definitely host such debates / topics. While we talk about shaming individuals, we are the same country who ridiculed Tata Nano owners for owning cheap car and made a flop out of well engineered car. Hope I have been able to pen down my thoughts. |
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18th January 2021, 12:14 | #69 |
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| Re: How important is our concern for safety? It's great to see that SAFETY is becoming a key topic of discussion for the auto enthusiasts. This will definitely help to bring the much needed safety changes. Being enthusiasts, we take lots of pain to decide about our next vehicle. Naturally, that enthusiasm means that we defend our choices and decisions. However, looking at the title 'How important is our concern for safety?' and the fact that is posted in 'Road Safety', I was expecting holistic discussion on safety. We have focused on just one part of the safety: How safe a car is OR how safe a car should be. A vehicle is designed and manufactured to run a road. Our roads (all types and only volume varies) are shared by each and everyone: fast moving vehicles, slow moving vehicles (heavy as well as three wheelers), cyclist, pedestrians, stray animals, potholes, poorly laid tarmac and what not. So, safety should be considered from all perspectives:
Also, there are some things (few in number) in our hands that we can do and others beyond our control. So, lets bring all aspects into discussion and how that can be solved at the individual level, road user level and government/authorities level. Hope this makes sense |
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18th January 2021, 12:41 | #70 |
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| Re: How important is our concern for safety? I think the more pertinent concern here should be "how well do we follow safety rules". You can be in the safest car possible, but if someone is driving rash, be it a truck or a car, an accident is inevitable. At times, I feel, people literally want to drive themselves to death - they know they are taking a risk and pushing the limits, but still repeat it. And this whole behaviour arises out of a mass-mentality. Until a majority of us don't start following rules, they are of no help. A classic example is to witness a signal ; if a couple of cars halt before the zebra crossing, automatically the cars next to them follow suit. Our roads are a mayhem consisting of all forms of man, machine (& animals too at some places) and it can be a task to get all of them to follow rules, but it has to start with someone. |
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18th January 2021, 13:37 | #71 |
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| Re: How important is our concern for safety? Mob mentality or heard mentality or what ever name we want to give it, is not the root cause for unsafe vehicles. The root cause is in lack of regulation as well as enforcement of that. Till now it is not mandatory for manufacturers to provide safety gear like passenger airbags. Enforcement on the manufacturer front for equipment availability is easier and feasible. Enforcement on the user front can never be sufficient. When people deliberately chose to smoke cancer causing substances, there is no stopping others from actively taking wrong actions. Users/consumer education can only go so far. People who do not want to be safe can chose to not buckleup or disconnect airbags, but if these devices are present, sensible people can make safe choices. It all boils down to choices. |
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18th January 2021, 14:57 | #72 | |
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| Re: How important is our concern for safety? Quote:
Case in point, we brought out our Verna to play some songs to jam to during Lohri, and loud it was not. Needless to say my father (and even I to some extent) felt a little embarrassed, but didn't show it outright. When I asked him about the same next day, he seemed to brush it off, because acknowledging the fact would've hurt, at least that's what I think of it. Even if the audio system was never even a consideration, let alone a priority in our buying decision, it's still better to think that other cars in the same segment aren't any better, than acknowledge the fact, right? Coming to the discussion at hand, shifting the blame and saying oh look, public transport is also unsafe, your work building is also unsafe, your home is also unsafe, doesn't help. These are things we can't control. Sure, if I was in charge of constructing my own office or house, I can make the necessary adjustments, but if I bought it off someone else, what else am I expected to do? If the policies and guidelines in place allow for such loopholes, what can the common man do? Organize a protest? Wait eons until things change? Isn't he at the mercy of the manufacturer/contractor/builder? With car crash norms, we have a similar system in place. The BNVSAP is outdated and conducts tests at 56 Km/h. I'll be a happy man if someone can link me the page where the results are uploaded for the mango man to see. Now that we have an independent crash test organisation which tests cars with up to date crash norms and uploads the results for everyone to see, as well as some manufacturers who are willing to go against the tide and actively make cars conforming to more up to date safety standards, why bash their efforts for being ahead of the curve or defend other manufacturers who aren't willing to change without government intervention. Do we not have a readily accessible choice in this case? Is it not right to be worried that the cars on sale which have presumably been approved by government prescribed BNVSAP as safe and road worthy, fail spectacularly in GNCAP tests? Doesn't the apathetic and indifferent statement that manufacturers like Maruti Suzuki put out every time their cars fail spectacularly in GNCAP reek of corporate greed and indifference as long as the law of the land favours their practices? Yes, you may say that the 3 star rated car with better features is a priority over 5 star rated car with lesser features. Yes, you can say that after sales service and peace of mind it brings in case something breaks down made you go for the 3 star rated car. Maybe resale value was the reason. All are perfectly reasonable, because only you decide what is worth your money. These are all acceptable reasons, and nobody should be bashed for making the conscious decision to prioritise some other feature over safety. If it suits them, that's great. But I fail to understand how pointing out that there are numerous other unsafe means of transport, that there may be buildings that aren't built to adequate guidelines, that the roads in India are subpar, help make a case for defending a poorly rated car? Some accidents may be fatal even to the occupants of a 5 star rated car, does that mean we not fancy our increased chances of survival or the reduced risk of injuries in general because we can't predict the future and what might possibly spell our demise? Because other means of transport are not as safe, should we also ignore the one safe option available to us because what difference does it make in a sea of poorly crash rated vehicles? The common man presumably pays all his road taxes, fuel taxes, toll taxes that are supposedly meant to maintain the condition of roads. The fact that money isn't achieving its intended result is something that has to be taken up with respective authorities. Besides, isn't that the reason why cars conforming to higher standards of GNCAP vs lower standards set by our government through BNVSAP the reason they are gaining popularity? That there exists a better, superior alternative to government prescribed norms, for the exact same amount of money? Isn't that supposed to be a good thing? I remember a couple of years back, a report was published on some news channel which examined if steel beams and the sort used in construction were being built to the specified guidelines. And surprisingly, more than half of the brands showed some form of adulteration and failed the independent quality checks. Tata steel emerged untainted there too. It was being built to the specified guidelines even when independently checked. And hence, when we were to build our house, we chose the same, in addition to taking care of all the reinforcements needed in case of earthquakes, whether it was required or not. But before that, when we used to live in rented flats? Even the grounding wasn't properly done, I can only wonder if they were built to specified guidelines. I know not if Tata's other subsidiaries have similar work ethic with regards to safety, but it has been proven at least in these two aspects. Last edited by BlackPearl : 4th February 2021 at 16:57. Reason: Minor typo. Thanks. | |
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18th January 2021, 15:00 | #73 |
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| Re: How important is our concern for safety? Safety is a relative term. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 80% of cars sold in the world are not compliant with main safety standards. Only 40 countries have adopted the full set of the seven most important regulations for car safety. For some safety comes as a priority, for some having a car before a bike becomes a reality and a priority, for many public transport is the only means of commute, for some choosing cars based on its bling is a priority. So the underlying word here is priority. People have come a long way to understand the safety requirements. There are various safety features which may not be available in all the motor vehicles that we drive or is available especially in the Indian car market. Let me list down the safety features that every car must have but may not have: • DADS Driver Alertness Detection System to prevent crashes caused by fatigue • Automatic Braking systems to prevent or reduce the severity of collision. • Infrared night vision systems to increase seeing distance beyond headlamp range • Adaptive headlamps control the direction and range of the headlight beams to light the driver's way through curves and maximize seeing distance without partially blinding other drivers • Reverse backup sensors, which alert drivers to difficult-to-see objects in their path when reversing • Backup camera • Adaptive cruise control which maintains a safe distance from the vehicle in front • Lane departure warning systems to alert the driver of an unintended departure from the intended lane of travel • Tire pressure monitoring systems or Deflation Detection Systems • Traction control systems which restore traction if driven wheels begin to spin • Electronic Stability Control, which intervenes to avert an impending loss of control • Anti-lock braking systems • Electronic brakeforce distribution systems • Emergency brake assist systems • Cornering Brake Control systems • Assured Clear Distance Ahead measurement and speed governance systems • Precrash system • Automated parking system • Obstacle detection sensor systems notify a driver how close their vehicle is to an object - usually providing a distance measurement, to the inch, as to how close they are. The above are apart from seat belts and air bags. So in conclusion if one is not careful while driving, doesn't use his presence of mind and is not a careful and always takes risk while driving then there is no point having any of the above features. For some driving is passion and most of the team bhp members have that passion, but for some it could be their livelihood (auto drivers/bus drivers/abs). Do we think about these safety features when we board a cab or an auto. Is the passengers life only important and the not the drivers? We may not have a single solution to any of these problems. Our life is in our hands and it is left to us as to how we drive and what we drive. It is nobody's business! |
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18th January 2021, 16:03 | #74 |
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| Re: How important is our concern for safety? What safety are we speaking of, when we have drunk driving, driving on the wrong side, no taillight driving, overloaded vehicles, people not using seatbelts, using phone when driving, cutting across medians, running across highways, making animals like cows feed on the median etc etc? The above has nothing to do with education or money, it simply is a factor of arrogance, the feeling of I can get away with anything which most Indians seem to have in infinite quantities. Unless we develop collective common sense, empathy for others around us and a sense of discipline, we can keep and should keep on educating people on safety and mandate for legislation for safer transportation, however we may not see encouraging results. |
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18th January 2021, 19:25 | #75 |
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| Re: How important is our concern for safety? I agree with many points made in this thread but I think we have to differentiate the concern on safety between the following - 1. Road safety - Our roads are not safely designed and I think it is beyond our control to improve because of existing "bureaucratic" system in India. Also, this is the topmost reason for road causalities. If we have well designed roads, traffic lanes for all kinds of users, crossing points, parking spots, shoulders on sides etc a lot of lives can be saved in the country (surely more than what COVID-19 impacted.) 2. Implementation of road safety laws - Instead of blaming the public I would blame the traffic police. The fear of law does not exist in public. We can get away with anything - driving license without a driving test, no fine for over speeding, not wearing a hamlet or safety belt, jumping a signal, drunk driving or the worse after being involved in a fatal accident. Bring that fear of law and mob mentality will follow to obey the rules. 3. Vehicle/Automotive safety - We are lagging on this and have a few basic rules implemented by the government. Manufacturers have no choice but to follow. Here we have a choice to buy minimal safety features or world class safety features. However, it adds a real worth only when we get the above two where we do not have a choice. While people try to point on others for automotive safety but its worth is less in general public. We can easily see people driving a 5 star rated safety car without wearing the seat belt above the speed limit. |
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