Team-BHP - A Guide to: Buying a Safer Automobile

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Originally Posted by Hashim (Post 1342366)

Some basic tips that I follow:

- If possible buy a bigger car, a sedan car will save you from accidental injury more than a compact hatch due to longer hood and diggi.

- Drive slow. This is very important as most accidents happen when speed was more. Think about hittting with another vehicle at slow speed, you may only get few scratches on the car or bumper broken and high speed leads to totalled vehicles and loss of life we see daily in "accidents" thread here. Going to a place 5 min late is better than going to hospital then possibly graveyard.

- Drive will full presence of mind and follow good manner of driving. Keep yourself away from all kind of distraction and drive carefully.

- Safety features in cars are just for unfortunate accidents which you cannot avoid, having a car with Airbags, ABS, ESP, TPMS DOES NOT mean you can be less careful with driving on that car. Sometimes even all these features toegther may not be able to save life.

I hope you mean bigger in the sense, "bigger" money. Even small cars like fabia costs more in the name of features. :-)
I totally agree with your points.

Its indeed heartening to see a full blown discussion on safety. While I do agree that there is a lot to be done by the government/road contractors/ public at large, I feel the manufacturers should also take the initiative and offer safety kit atleast as optional extras. Granted that the road conditions are chaotic, but does that not suggest that a car with proper safety equipment is atleast that much better off than one without?

Another rant I have against manufacturers is this equation of luxury and safety. All the manufacturers (atleast in the B segment) offer safety equipment only in their top end versions. I may not want power windows and remote locking, but I certainly want ABS/ airbags. Or are customers like me too small in number and are best ignored?

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Originally Posted by Dose (Post 1009090)

Generally, Indians value fuel consumption or some other non-safety factor when considering what automobile (auto) to buy. What we do not understand until it's too late is that the cost of a major accident, ranging from medical bills to permanent disabilities to ourselves and our family, usually negates the money saved on a non-safety factor such as fuel consumption.

An extremely interesting (and related) discussion we had on a similar topic, way back in 2004 : Linky

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Originally Posted by Volt (Post 1343192)

Government should see the developing society.Many luxury/premium branded automotive companies are showing interest to enter in indian markets,but there are many people out there who are not interested on high end cars just because of the reason Bad roads .

Roads play an important role in safe driving (correct me if I am wrong).

The main thing is LACK OF AWARENESS.Only people around here know the importance of airbags,ABS,EBD.But yesterday,I had a chat with my friend who owns an A-star.I told him the relation between the airbag and seatbelts and he replied me WHO CARES.He says that he is not concerned with airbags,he just got the car to go around in the city and this gives mileage,low service charge,cheap spare parts.When I advised him to get airbags to the rear passenger seats,he says I DONT WANT TO WASTE 40,000 rupees for them.And he travels on highways very frequently with his family.

I don't know I may sound crazy,But Team-bhp should make an awareness program telling the importance of airbags and the basic specifications they should have in the car other than Fuel efficiency,maintainence.It will help a lot for others.Even here,this topic was dull for many months.

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Originally Posted by Gagan.js (Post 1342378)

A lot of small cars have a better crash test rating than sedans so the myth is busted that sedans are safer.

Crash ratings are relevant only when comparing cars in the same weight category.

Crashtest.com - vehicle size & weight matters

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Keep in mind that crash test results shouldn't be compared among vehicles with large weight differences (more than 15%), so we have divided the vehicles into 5 distinct weight categories.

Awareness is very important.
Step 1. The government should bring in the rule for manufacturers making safety as a major point while giving subsidies to them. Bigger the safety measures in the car bigger the subsidies. (and not on engine capacity and size of the car).

Step 2. The manufacturers should create a need for these safety measures make them as standard equipment even in the base models.

Step 3. Monitoring of these safety features in the car and their proper maintainance should be the major checks during regular services.

Step 4. The traffic police should be trained to check the functionality of these safety equipments. And impose heavy fines on evaders. (No bribing please).

Step 5. CCTV and cameras at each major signal and important traffic junctions just to act as an deterrent for such drivers who like to evade these rules.

I know it sounds more like a wishlist, but till the time safety is not taken seriously in our country this whole excercise would look like a wishlist for some hopeful individuals like us.
Cheers!

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Originally Posted by schitre05 (Post 1343963)

Step 5. CCTV and cameras at each major signal and important traffic junctions just to act as an deterrent for such drivers who like to evade these rules.

Essentially, you are asking for a police state.

Next step would be keep state operated cameras everywhere, not just signals - this can prevent thefts/murders etc.

Even better would state operated cameras inside every home - this can prevent dowry abuse, spousal abuse, domestic violence etc.

And in general, it would nice if police come & check our house once a month just to make sure we don't have any stolen goods in our house, we don't have any pirated videos, mp3s etc.

Be careful what you wish for!!!

Carboy, I couldn't stop laughing reading yuour post. Very well worded. You are right, why do we need policing? How many of us stop at a signal at 11:30 in the night? I do. People thing I am stupid. Most people fasten belts cos they can be fined. Not cos it might save their lives. I know of so many people who take off the belt as they move out of the city limits.

My safety is my concern. When will people realise this?

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Originally Posted by dushmish (Post 1344326)

Pasting one of my favourite Seinfeld quotes below

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There are many things that we can point to as proof that the human being is not smart. The helmet, is my personal favourite. The fact that we had to invent the helmet. Now why did we invent the helmet ? Well, because we were participating in many activities that were cracking our heads. We looked at the situation, we chose not to avoid these activities, but to just make little plastic hats, so that we can continue our head-cracking life styles. The only thing dumber than the helmet is the helmet law, the point of which is to protect a brain that is functioning so poorly, it's not even trying to stop the cracking of the head that it's in.

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Originally Posted by carboy (Post 1344110)

don't do that :Frustrati I will be in jail for having 2 hard disk,1 external hard disk with full of downloaded movies,music,tv series.And keeping cameras inside every home will disturb the privacy and cameras at signals were there in my city (not hyderabad) long back but no proper action on that.

I think we are going :OT.

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Originally Posted by cuttingcrew (Post 1345915)

> How many of us stop at a signal at 11:30 in the night? I do.
Next time think again. I almost got rammed from behind as the guy behind me never expected me to stop. But I still try to obey the rules, and I look out for the car behind too. On top of this everybody is on high beam. Conclusion: I try to avoid night driving.

I am nerevr a fan of policing, lets try to educate us first.

Education is the key ! if everyone was educated, and they understood the repurcussions of thier actions, I doubt they would do those things. eg: my car was hit by a bike once, the fellow got off and said, I saved you by hitting you lightly, I asked "HOW ?" reply: "The damage to my bike would have cost me lesser than the damage to your car" --- I had no reply to that, what sienfeld said was absolutely right, how should I explain to him the cost of bodily harm ?

another example, I overheard someone at a maruti showroom saying, "if I crash my car with airbags, how much would it cost to replace ? 50,000 ? forget it, no airbags" now what can you do about that ? its pitiable.
There is something wrong with the way we are brought up, my parents always taught me safety and life is above everything else, im not sure about everyone else.

I'm quite interested in the sedan v/s hatch safety. I'm not sure about rear end impacts but for frontal or side impacts (and these are generally more serious in terms of injuries caused than a rear end impact) I doubt it makes a difference. Perhaps the weight of the car, build quality and the wheelbase would be a better indicator? And let's not forget simple stuff like a well sorted suspension and good brakes that could make a lot of difference