[cule1899_bhp]

Most of the things I wanted to say have already been shared by fellow members. So I'll only add a few things.

Due to lack of awareness, negligence, or whatever the reason be; I think we don't pursue safety, we only accept or use whatever that is given to us after every other want is met. Until we prioritize safety into our budgeting or valuation we'll end up settling for the variants giving best bang for the buck.
I really appreciate the manufacturers who give all the safety kit common to all the variants because the customer is wired to be attracted to the number of features or creature comforts which gives him visible pleasure that can be perceived or showed off unlike safety features that say hi only in the moments that really matter.

This and safe driving habits are what's in our hands; faulty roads or designs, traffic sense etc., we can only wish for them to get better. We can always educate our F&F or a beginner by sharing forums such as this and that is always a place to begin that can make some if not significant difference. After all, a fraction of second or a few centimeters is what makes an accident or a near miss.

Last but not the least, we need to learn to enjoy the road. I know it's not a vacation drive everyday but I think if you are disinterested in something you'd hardly want put in the effort or have the patience to put up with. It doesn't help you, your co-passengers, or the other road users.
After being holed up in our homes for many months I think that most of us would rather take the pleasure of sitting behind the wheel than the pain of sitting in front of a screen.

Happy and safe miles

[dexter78]

[quote=antz.bin;5396465]Respectfully disagree. It has everything to do with lack of safety education. I can give my own before and after example.

How would you justify the total lack of concern when people walk into the roads without a care expecting the mechanical transport to stop on a dime/ headphone on while driving bikes/ cutting lanes or breaking as they deem fit/ parking on turns or high traffic areas which are not designated/ riding with flipflops on two wheelers/ wrong side driving on any and all roads. Long term survival, environmental causes, civic issues and concerns, personal safety all come down the priority list. It’s about making/ earning money in the now.

Speak to a PWD/ NHAI person they will tell you plastic drums that need to be filled with water to absorb energy don’t stay long, someone comes along to sell it off as scrap, so they fill it concrete/ cement, so no one runs off with it, this defeats the whole purpose. The reason someone whacks it in the first place is about survival (or to fund a habit) for them not safety. Same with the bridge story. If it’s an existing bridge lets narrow down the road to squeeze in the road/ narrow it down, not let’s construct one up-to code as its costs a lot more $$.

[MaheshY1]

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

The biggest ACTIVE safety feature of any car is the nut behind the wheel - the driver!
...

Beautifully said! I can vouch for the fact that no amount of expense on modifying a vehicle will give as much returns in terms of lap time improvements as learning to max out the capabilities of the vehicle and our own without crossing either -- ever. Moreover, these improvements are transferrable to other vehicles, unlike any performance modes.

In a similar way, no amount of safety kit will make our roads safer if we have drivers with poor driving skills and unaware of the limits -- of their cars and themselves.

I see so many people busting their budget to get the Nexon or Altroz for a 5-star safety rating and keeping their infants and toddlers in the front passenger's lap. I'm not buying the 5-star safety excuse from someone ferrying a kid in the car without an appropriate seat. If you can buy a 10 lakh rupee car, then you can certainly afford a 5,000 rupee car seat. Even a non-ISOFIX one works well. ISOFIX only makes a child seat dummy-proof to operate and easier to install and remove.

I don't allow anyone sitting behind me to remain unbuckled. I'll rather switch seats if it makes the rear seat passenger move to the front to put on the seatbelt. My kid no longer needs reminders and buckling up has become like a ritual when traveling. For shorter city drives, we don't always use the booster seat but for city drives too, wearing the seatbelt is like a ritual even for backbenchers.

No amount of safety features and crash test ratings are good enough if you can't buckle up and don't practice defensive driving.

This was shot about 20 days ago when I was hanging out with my kid in the back seat while my wife was driving us:


This one is from 2017 when we had stopped to grab a quick bite of some street food:


This one was clicked about a year ago. Notice the decathlon-branded wrist and elbow armors. Knee armors aren't visible. We try to accommodate as much safety as we can within a reasonable budget.


Slightly Off Topic:
In 2017, I participated in a 3-day Royal Enfield group ride event. During the ride, I often found myself riding a little faster than I would in those situations just to keep up with the crowd. On multiple occasions, I overshot the curves and my braking point. After I had a close call in the ghats, the lead rider asked me to maintain a comfortable pace after he found out. He said, "Don't worry about slowing down the group. A slow rider won't slow down the group as much as an injured rider."

[nickelniks]

voted for "Lack of awareness about safety and why it’s important" & "Belief that we drive carefully, so won’t get into accidents"

Well educated folk do not have an understanding of safety. One time recently, on the way down from Nandi hills one of my well educated "senior manager in MNC" friend wanted to pop outside the sunroof while I drove downhill.
Not to my surprise, everyone in the car was convinced that the sunroof is for standing out of it in a moving car & I was declared the idiot of the group.
However I put my foot down that no one is standing out of the sunroof in a moving car & parked the vehicle to the side.

Safety awareness for us Indians will take 1-2 more generations before it becomes ubiquitous.

[amitayu]

Safety is a premium feature in our cars, in lines with DRL and fancy alloys.

It took so long to mandate 2 airbags in our cars! global manufacturers, who take is as a must in other markets, never bothered to offer them in the Indian variants of the same models.

And those who offered them had an HTT attitude; you pay a premium for what we otherwise give as basic in the rest of the world!

And when you have the biggest manufacturer in the country dissing NCAP and safety ratings, you know how deep rooted the problem is!

[TravelIKON]

I feel anyone who has got a Team-BHP membership, with its strict entry process, is sane enough to understand the importance of safety. However, I've seen multiple cars with T-bhp stickers being driven in a rash manner. Also, the average speeds posted by some members in their travelogues - more than 80 kph etc. with breaks tells a tale about their driving manners.

Always I read people coming up with lame arguments like you can overspeed but still be safe etc. But the point is, rules are being broken with a false sense of superiority.

So, if such an educated group of people can't value safety, what about the millions of others who don't even know the basics of a car?

Something to ponder upon.

[destinykid]

First, I think as a culture we have utter disregard for safety. For us lives really don't matter. We all do what we do based on what is convenient for us. As a person who is involved in heavy construction, I can vouch that helmets, safety nets, fall protection equipment, shoes are slowly making into our projects due to insistence from the owners and not because contractors want to make it safe for their workers. Most of these changes started happening because of mandatory insistence. In earlier days the workers and managements were reluctant citing that the safety equipment would reduce the efficiency of worker output.

Second, we never learn from our mistakes. Every time an accident happens, the next few days there will be so much of commotion that happens about the safety measures. Eventually all the new measures dissipate till another unfortunate incident happens. This is cycle born out of our tendencies and habits. At the end we blame it to Karma - our most convenient excuse.

Third, the only way safety can become a mandatory requirement is strict implementation. This involves hefty fines for repeat violations. Just creating awareness without enforcement may not serve the purpose. This is the philosophy that is taught to us in transportation engineering. We call it EEE... Engineering, Education and Enforcement. A good engineering needs to be backed with creating awareness. Like we have excellent highways and yet we end up with so many accidents. So, in addition, Government conducts many traffic safety camps - most of them are conducted during road safety week. But how many care to attend them? Therefore, Enforcement becomes critical. And this where we lack a lot. Most of our enforcement is superficial at best. Hope this gets better, and we take the traffic violations more seriously. The three measures are like three legs of a stool and equally important for safe highways. One cannot get a stable stool with a missing leg no matter how strong the other two legs are... The same goes for our highways.

[chaudh2s]

Originally Posted by GTO

Awareness is the main reason. Things are improving due to the public GNCAP results, Tata / Mahindra's track record with 5-star safety cars, an increasing number of articles & discussions around safety, government initiatives etc.
But overall awareness levels are still low and the general apathy toward safety sucks.
Hence, it is the government's job to push safety. Similar to how they pushed for ABS + Airbags + parking sensors + speed warning chimes, now the government needs to make ESP mandatory (as it is in many countries worldwide), and concurrently, cars with safe structures.
Only the government can force this change. Car manufacturers will be happy to sell unsafe cars as long as they can, and take advantage of this situation.
Going the pre-worshipped route is the only way to get a safe car for 5 lakhs. Example, a used VW Polo.

This is an elitist way of thinking. Everybody wants to protect oneself and his family the best possible way they can. But, you cannot force that safety upon others. By enforcing these 5 star rated cars, we have deprived that scooter rider from getting more safe. The car which was already a stretch for him, has gone out of reach for him, he might probably die tomorrow on that 5 star rated scooter. just because of many disillusioned people amongst us. And yes, why just 5 star cars, why not 5 star 2 wheelers, why don't we create a storm that all 2 wheelers should be banned as they are unsafe. Why dont we stage a dharna outside toll operators office. Am sure you would have seen poorly designed roads, the dips and crests at flyover/bridges joints, which can lead to a car loosing grip and crashing. Because we are keyboard warriors! For that matter, how safe are people' houses where you spend more than 50% of your time, do you have smoke/fire detectors, a fire extinguisher, fire rated doors, have you audited that builder and his subcontractor who did the calculations for earthquake protection, or if the building materials and the way rebars need to be tied for them to be effective in an earthquake. Did you got them audited? Am sure nobody did, and even if an auditer was hired, he would have just put his stamp on the building plans as soon as he got his commission. So, my point is why this brouhaha just with cars. Am sure you would have seen those ghastly youtube videos of children getting electrocuted in their own building apartment complex while playing? What with safer electricity/electric appliance laws?

And these star ratings are all relative, as you have seen now, NCAP is passé, Latin NCAP is the new king on the block, they fail even NCAP rated cars. Also, these ratings bring a sense of false confidence in the mind of an unsafe driver that he is invincible and ends up getting killed in his 5 star vehicle doing crazy speeds, maneuvers. In the end, am not against safe cars, rather than pushing for a blanket 5 star ratings, there should be variants which elites can buy and are fully safety complaint to the laws of the land. My suggestion to BHpians would be to get some logic into their minds, rather than ridiculing manufacturers, put your energies where they would make a difference. Get above your caste, religion, region and focus your energies to make our country the most developed in the world. The covid crisis and Ukraine war has given India such a great opportunity/head start to achieve this in a very short time, don't waste this opportunity, it might not come again ever. If Maruti vehicles are selling like hot cakes even without star ratings what is our problem, why do we want them to build 5 star cars, you can buy from 10 other manufacturers too. Why create a disillusioned storm over Maruti and try to bring them down. Poorly engineered components in our 5 star Tata, Mahindras can be so unreliable that their airbag/ESP might not even work when a crash happens. What to do with that kind of safety, that's only on paper. We should not hail mediocracy.

Here is Europe, its not just 5 star cars, there are older 0 star cars also which are running without anybody getting killed in them. That's because, the roads are F-L-A-T, the driving license exams include practical courses where they make you experience a 360 deg skid while making a turn/braking in wet conditions, the road infrastructure is super and you don't find 1 person, yes, 1 person, driving dangerously on highways. That's the class and training levels of people here. Try to achieve that, not just 5 star cars.

[streetfighter]

Voted: Others

My cousin brother cited lack of "safe" options when he was out in the market to buy his car. A Creta/Seltos was on his shortlist as those suited his requirements and budget. He knew about the shortcoming of the Seltos on safety and ratings, but eventually got it, as no other better alternate was available.

[jbpanda]

Voted for lack of awareness, government does not prioritise, vehicle manufacturers do not prioritise and people do not care about safety.

It is all in the mindset of people. For most people until recently, owning a car itself was a luxury. Gradually, things have improved with most people having a better standard of living and can afford cars. However, somewhere down the line the mindset has not changed which is to save costs. Owning a car with visible gizmos is more important than prioritising latent features (viz. safety features) and I attribute the reason to be all the aforesaid which I have voted. Unless enforced from the government, manufacturers would not bother and slip in unsafe vehicles in the market. As long as unsafe but cheaper vehicles are available, general public will continue buying them due to lack of awareness as they do not care about safety. Though people will still find ways and means to avoid adopting the safety features (for example, wearing seat belt at the first place and instead using cheat code to avoid that) but it will still benefit most and those who do not care about safety will do so at their own risk and responsibility.

[ppc_rgs]

For the price sensitive Indian middle class, a car is safer than a bike. When public is not well informed, it is the government that must step in to make our roads and cars safer by design.

More than a decade ago, when I bought WagonR, I was persuaded by the sales person to go for a model without ABS (airbags were not on offer). His argument was simple - we don't need these features in India and why spend more money. I do not know the current situation, but I feel they will push for lower spec models with limited or no safety features to price sensitive customer to make a sale. We need strong regulations.

[vaibhavyagnik]

Being in the manufacturing industry, I see people endangering themselves countless number of times. Just have a look around you where there is construction happening or fabrication happening. I bet they won't have proper personal protective equipment or equipment that is safe to use. I feel that the lack of safety mindset is due to:
1. Ensuring safety costs money and time and we lack both - That is the reason why people shy away from buying safety equipment or equipment which meets a certain safety standard.
2. Lack of awarness - Take example of our sanitation workers who go in sewers with just a rope tied to their waist. They don't know that they can suffocate while in the sewer.
3. It hasn't happened to me before so won't happen in the future. - Take example of many people doing cutting grinding on construction and fabrications jobs. Earths not connected, high voltage cables fraying, inhaling welding smoke, grinding without the protective cover so on an so forth.

[efgritesh]

Voted for Govt's lethargy. I believe one option that needs to be added is that we live in time where no body cares and hence who make it a priority are also going to meet the same fate.

I will give you an example from one incident I faced today. I left home for office and few meters from house there was Ganpati pandaal which was blocking one side of the road. I had no choice but to drive on wrong side to cross the pandaal. Now I was driving at crawling speeds aware of the fact that I am driving wrong side, but one gentleman in incoming traffic who was lost in his thoughts realised it very late and started shouting for me driving on wrong side.

I can imagine the gentleman wasn't at fault considering he wasn't expecting incoming traffic. I had no choice considering the lane was blocked. Not sure whom to blame, if not our time, society, govt.

[headbanger]

Personally, I believe that our government historically has been lethargic and uninformed on the safety aspect. Policy formulation is a government subject and they ought to create enough safety regulations that can start to create safety ecosystem. Manufacturers are businesses and they will do everything to maintain top line and bottom line of their businesses. It's government's job to ensure that the regulatory framework takes care that the manufacturers can't skimp on the minimum laid out safety protocols. And for God's sake, have some professionals who make the rules rather than dumb red tape creating nuisance like NGT.

The other part is the equation is money. To give my own example, I started out with a search for safe automatic high seated petrol car within a budget of 15L, now extended to 18L. What options do I have? Every darn option will come with a big compromise to make. If I pick Mahindra or Tata, I will need to adjust with head bobs in AMT. Koreans have at best 3 star safety ratings. I had high hopes with Maruti but the new Brezza is wheezy and cheap. I have to now make choice whether I plan to see ultra cheap interiors of Brezza everyday or keep in mind of 3 star rating if I opt for Seltos.

[unoczar]

Shared today by Cyberabad Traffic Police on Twitter. Apt!

https://twitter.com/CYBTRAFFIC/statu...iM2db3dhw&s=19

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