Killer Indian roads are going to be safer now

Going forward, Indian car-makers have only two choices, either to re-engineer or stop production of cars that don’t make the safety cut.

The reason behind this sudden rise in safety awareness is that from October onwards, safety features like dual airbags and antilock-braking systems (ABS) will be made mandatory in all new models. While from October 2019, all cars currently in production will be required to meet these standards.

India doesn’t rank good in terms of road safety, having had more road fatalities than any other country in the recent years, even though the vehicle population here is a mere fraction of what leading economies have.

The Bharat New Vehicle Safety Assessment Programme was started to address this issue, which proposed a New Car Assessment Programme (NCAP), to rate cars based on their safety performance.

The biggest concern that car-makers have is the increased cost of selling cheaper models and entry-level compacts in the Rs 3-5 lakh band after the implementation of these norms.

"In a competitive market there will always be cost pressures but consumers are increasingly demanding safer vehicles, too. Also, experience in other countries shows that when safety requirements become mandatory, manufacturers try to absorb the additional costs," David Ward, Secretary General of Global NCAP told ET.

Base models have been traditionally sold in India without airbags and other safety devices to make them affordable, but once Global NCAP crash-tested these models, they saw alarmingly poor results, hence the mandate for safety equipment was made.



(Image source Feedster)