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-   -   Mandatory features in car, Govt needs to set condition (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/62415-mandatory-features-car-govt-needs-set-condition.html)

For safety, fuel, comfort, I think India must have mandatory features in all cars, trucks, heavy vehicles. I am not sure why Govt. of India don't fix this in first place.
Safty:
1. ABS
2. EBD
3. Front Airbags
4. Side Airbags
5. Curtain Airbags
6.PAB (Passanger Airbag) ON/OFF Switch
7.Central Locking (5 DR CLS)
8.Seat Belt Pretensioner With Load Limiter for all seats
9.Seat Belt Warning system
10.HID Headlamps with Retractable Washers
11.Fog Lamps (Rear)
12.Fog Lamps (Front)
13.Rear wiper
14.Front and rear parking sensor with camera for rear
15.Day & Night Inside Rear View Mirror
16.Immobilizer with alarm
17.car tracking device
18.Impact sensing auto door unlock
19.Impact Sensing Fuel Cut
20.Ignition Key Reminder - CLS disabled
21.Electronic Power steering
22.automatic Headlamp Leveling System
23.Tyre pressure warning system
24.Seat Security Lock
25.Power Door Lock
26.Outside Rear View Mirrors- Electrically Adjustable + Retractable
27.Head impact protection
28.Whiplash Injury Lessining Seats
29.Electronic stability control
30. radio system to tune up emergency announcements
31.Tubeless tyres
32. security no. plates.
33. all taxies, public vehicles, call center cabs must have equipment fitted to monitor them centrally. Taxi/cab, bus must have camera to monitor passenger activity, signal should go to monitoring server.
34. Like Europe, all public vehicles must have system to monitor & record speed all time, this should be fitted in private, Govt vehicles as well. In Europe they maintain paper cd, which records speed and distance covered every day.
35. Driver must swap his license card to start engine. If he don't have one in emergency, vehicle can be enabled to start (by central Police - remotely).

Fuel:
1. All vehicles must be fitted with alternative fuel system e.g. Petrol + CNG/ LPG, Diesel + CNG
2. All Govt. Semi Govt , Govt granted orgs, NGO vehicles must run on CNG/LPG all time except emergency. RTO should be directed not to register petol / Diesel only vehicles.

CNG can be supplied across India over period of time, but vehicle should be launched with alternate fuel system.

Comfort:
1. all vehicles must launch at least one model with AT. :thumbs up
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Please feel free to add new stuff.

Sounds great but have you thought about how unrealistic such a proposition is? Smarter things would be easily implementable stuff such as making driving tests more thorough, enforcing the fines and punishments strictly for breaking traffic rules, infrastructure (like not having those potholes in the middle of the fast lane)etc. The stuff you're talking about won't happen in India for at least twenty years when perhaps we'll be near where Europe is now. Its just too expensive and would mean that 50% of us can't drive cars anymore if this stuff happens

In my view Government should focus on governing rather than trying to define the product specs. Governing means enforing the current laws. We have some of the toughest laws in the world. but enforcement is poor. some examples of tough laws

1. Emission certificate
2. Bhartat II/III/IV compliance
3. Driving Tests needed to be passed
4. Minimum education needed
5. Traffic rules to be followed
6. Speed limits
7. Parking rules
8. Registration / Road tax / Insurance formalities etc.

even if they enforce this properly, it would be great.

Nice exhaustive list but how about starting off with the basics like ensuring heavy vehicles have their tail lamp functioning?

for me i just have only one point that i would the GOI (Govt Of India) to enforce through Road and Transport authority in india.

have a yearly mandatory passing of every vehicle to check the road worthiness of the vehicle. by checking the pollution, suspension, tyres, lights, etc.

after passing this test, only then the registration of the vehicle should be renewed for 1 more year.

Even the current laws are not properly enforced. How will these be implemented ? What about the need of the hour :
a) Proper roads
b) Good quality fuel
c) Strict RTO rules.


d) d) Agree on all points, but what would be replacement cost for many parts like those HID lamps. Here I think HID lamps can be best utilized with projector units. Are you talking about the same or like Altis where just HID are present.
Now again the OVRM. An aluminium hood will sometimes cost less than OVRM. Yes in India, surprisingly OVRM are very very expensive. Manufacturers know this and hence the high price to earn money. If all features like retrackable are added, the cost will go up. Chances of these getting damaged are high, what would be maintenance cost i.e. how much will it cost to buy a new one ?
Again what will that automatic headlamp levelling system cost ?

About seatbelts, what we need is that all the passengers of car have 3 point belts.
But there is no need for belt reminder for front passnegers. A person has to care about this safety too. For rear passengers it must be mandatory else else they can kill front passengers in case of impact. But Indians will find a way to disable any such system.

EPS is the not what we need. We need HPS.
30,33,34,35 : Simply not possible in India. Police will ask for bribe to start the car. There can be scam like deliberately people will be attacked, police will ask for bribe and both police and attacking party will be sharing that money.

e) What we first need is good pure fuel. Forget CNG, even good petrol is hard to find and same is case with diesel. Also less tax on fuel.

IMHO, all things are good in books, but practically we have to work on a lot of things. And you know how much cost will it add to the car ?

I believe that for India we need a car that is built on principle of KISS ( Keep It Simple, Stupid ). No need for very very complex things till we have our discipline factor sorted out. Safe cars in hands of indisciplined drivers will create more horror stories for disciplined drivers.

Hi Amit, You made my day with this comment. How true !!

In most cases,the car manufacturers also don't try to put these things because the tax that is levied on the vehicle and tax is huge on accessories.This is one of the reasons due to which manufacturers prefer to have variants or sell only the base variants in India.
Taking the Nano as an example,foreign countries don't mind paying the premium and getting it with airbags,but in India it doesn't come with airbags.
The ministry should look into these factors.Also the insurance in most cases with added safety features should be lesser but in our country its vice-versa..

Though this sounds good, I too feel that it is highly impractical.
It makes no sense having all those features if people are just going to ignore it. Instead, like in the States, I feel that the govt. should:
- Make the testing more difficult
- Make it mandatory for vehicles to be examined for safety reasons where improper parts, like worn tyres, busted suspension etc. have to be replaced within a stipulated time period or the owner would have to pay hefty fines.

Actually the new CMVR norms were brought into force from 1st april 2009. the major which i can recollect for the heavy, medium and light commercial vehicles were :

1. Reflective tapes covering atleast 80% of the vehicle which includes the CAB, canopy and the load body.

2. Rollover safety: reinforcement provided to cabin as safety measures incase of vehicle toppling over.

3. The ABS was supposed to be made compulsory for all commercial vehicles, but i think still its pending.

4. the already implemented ones are the rods or safety grills below the chassis at the rear and sides so that the pedestrians dont get under the vehicle accidentally.

there are many such norms without which the ARAI doesnt provide the certificate. i will get back with the whole document.

the sad thing in INDIA is that these norms hold true only when the vehicle is new. as soon as the customer starts using this he keeps on scrapping many things.

We have Strict RTO Rules, but we need the people to follow the rules. It is impossible to enforce the rule in this police to public ratio.

Agreed, it is a nice exhaustive list. But to bring all these features would ensure the price going through the roof. It will certainly not be practical.
To start with we need to ensure that the current laws are properly enforced. It still is possible to get a DL with having to clear a driving test. And one should see the way road worthiness of old trucks is proven at RTO, it is a sham. All that they do is get the truck a new coat of paint and hand over money to the officer there, and then those trucks are used to carry sand from one end of the city to the other. And all that these trucks manage is a speed of 20km/hr.

Well as mentioned, some of the items in the list are very futuristic.

But safety devices like ABS+EBD, Airbags, etc, should be there in every car which has engine capacity above, say 1L. How hard is it for the government to enact a law which would force all manufactures to install them in the cars? It doesn't cost the government anything. They have already done that with the seat belts.

Also as mentioned, enforcing the existing laws is the way to move ahead. And ofcourse users should take safety into their own hands.

You should wear Mandatory Helmets for car passengers/drivers, you can reduce the above list to half.

Having a mandatory list of features is one part of the story and actually monitoring them in reality is the real part of the story.

To begin with, with all these features in the cars, it will make more than 60% cars vanish from our roads (prohibitive cost for most people).

I do agree that some of the listed features should be there as standard kit, but I feel that the real problem lies in implementation. Even if we can implement 50% of the rules that we have currently, it would save so many lives.

For example, a bike carries about 4 children, people talking on mobiles while driving their cars and bikes, people not wearing seat belts, jumping read lights, coming on the wrong side (both within the city and on highways), and there are so many other small things like this.