[nukeblitz]

Well, the government does seem to have voluntary crash testing on the cards from end 2015. If that works out without delays, the right company marketing and media push can push customers to care about safety ratings - AND to stay away from vehicles that don't have ratings. There've been several vehicles in other countries that were organically driven out of the market by consumers because of safety ratings. Voluntary testing will start that process..

[johannskaria]

Bullet points :-

1. The frontal crash tests will be at 56 kmph, while the norm set for side crash tests is 50 kmph.

2. Front and other portions of the new cars sold after the respective cut off dates have to be designed in a manner that pedestrians don't receive major injury when they are hit by these vehicles

3. There is a grace period of two years for existing models to pass the frontal crash test and one year extra time for side crash test since manufacturers have to change their production line (i.e Existing models can comply by October 2019 while it is mandatory for all new models to comply from October 2017 itself)

4. The government will also vigorously implement a new standard of "behaviour for vehicle steering during a head-on collision" to reduce fatality and improve occupant safety.

5. Though the government is not mandating the use of airbags in cars, vehicle manufacturers would have to fit this safety feature and child restraints in order to pass the crash tests

6. Ministry will also soon notify the Bharat New Vehicle Safety Assessment Programme ( BNVSAP) on the line of New Car Assessment Programme (NCAP) in other countries. Under this programme, car manufacturers can go for star rating based on the cars having better safety features

7. In effect the following will have to be complied with by all the cars to pass the crash test and get rated under the BNVSAP :-

a) The steering impact requirement
b) Requirements for behavior of steering mechanism of a vehicle in Head-on collision
c) Protection of occupants in the event of an Offset Frontal collision
d) Side door impact for all passenger cars
e) Approval of vehicles with regard to the protection of occupants in the event of a lateral collision
f) Approval of vehicles with regard to the protection of pedestrians and other vulnerable road users (cyclists and others) in the event of a collision with a motor vehicle

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...w/47211343.cms

Official notification by the ministry of transport and Highway :-
Crash Test notification by the ministry of transportation.pdf

[SS-Traveller]

Two and a half years later? Why the huge gap?

[johannskaria]

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

Two and a half years later? Why the huge gap?

1. India does not have the crash test rating mechanism in place - Bharat New Vehicle Safety Assessment Programme ( BNVSAP)
2. The crash test infrastructure is inadequate http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...-facility.html
3. Manufacturers lobby for delaying the deadline due to reworking/adjusting their production process takes time , India is highly a price sensitive market so with safety comes high prices too and so on and so forth.

But it will be interesting to see how many of manufacturers voluntarily complying to the set standards before the deadline!

[MSC]

Volkswagen and Toyota are among the first to make safety equipment standard even on the base variants.
But what is really shocking is that , the top 2 manufacturers namely Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai have got no plans for the time being. The top personal at Maruti Suzuki even have started finding faults and making irresponsible statements regarding safety equipments.
Hyundai used to offer ABS as an option in its cars earlier but now they too have started giving creature comfort as priority , meanwhile skipping on crucial safety equipments. They even stopped giving rear screen defogger in Sportz variants
Moreover, the time period allowed is way too long for enforcement of safety regulations.

[johannskaria]

Originally Posted by MSC

Volkswagen and Toyota are among the first to make safety equipment standard even on the base variants.
But what is really shocking is that , the top 2 manufacturers namely Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai have got no plans for the time being.

It's highly likely the state of Volkswagen and Toyota that is worrying the top players like Suzuki and Hyundai. In price sensitive markets like India at the lower end of the spectrum, small cars, your margins are wafer thin and customer demands are high. And the leading players have most of their product offerings in that bracket.

Let's not blame the manufacturer's alone.Two things have to change which hold equal importance:-
1. The Indian automobile buyer's priority to safety in the decision making process of vehicle purchase &
2. The Indian automobile manufacturer's willingness to have a moral obligation to roll off the products only with a certain level of safety.

Let's not forget our part!

[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by johannskaria

1. India does not have the crash test rating mechanism in place - Bharat New Vehicle Safety Assessment Programme ( BNVSAP)

Then what is DReddy talking about?

Originally Posted by DReddy

For the record, crash testing is indeed mandatory in India as per homologation requirements for every car that is sold here. Our crash testing requirement has been developed based on European standards...
The entire discussion bolis down to this, the Indian spec swift offers good enough protection upto around 40kmph(appx at which mandatory testing is done) while it performs poorly when tested at 64 kmph(NCAP testing speed). Either way we can't really comment on the fate of the occupants in case of a high speed collision(>100kmph).
Did anyone ever wonder why even NCAP insists on testing at a puny 64 kmph when these cars are easily able to cruise above 120 kmph? Food for thought.
(P.S: I am an automobile engineer trained at ARAI and this was the first question I asked in my first passive safety class of M.tech)

Originally Posted by DReddy

The following are tests related to passive safety that are performed as a part of the type approval process.
*Full frontal vehicle crash testing as per IS:11939/ECE-R-12
Offset frontal crash test as per ECE R94/AIS-98
*Side impact Test as per ECE R95/AIS 99**
Rear impact test as per ECE R32/AIS 101
These above standards can easily be found on the internet and are in line with European standards.

Originally Posted by DReddy

Here's the copied text from AIS-098 offset frontal crash test.
TEST SPEED
Vehicle speed at the moment of impact shall be 56 -0/+1 km/h.
However, if the test was performed at a higher impact speed and the
vehicle met the requirements, the test shall be considered satisfactory.

For more details you can download the published standards from ARAI website https://www.araiindia.com/Publish_AIS_Standards.asp

As I mentioned earlier, these crash test videos and reports are not available in the public domain and are solely used by the manufacturers and govt. authorities to certify the vehicle being tested, which is the same practice with any homologation/certification authority across the world.

It is only because, the various NCAP organizations perform their own crash tests and publish the results, that we are able to see them.

[johannskaria]

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

Then what is DReddy talking about?

DReddy is right we do have all these standards but "India does not have the crash test rating mechanism in place - Bharat New Vehicle Safety Assessment Programme ( BNVSAP)."

What we have is standards on paper - Automotive Industry Standards (AIS) . It cannot be forcefully enforced since it is not notified under the Central Motor Vehicles rules 1989 (CMVR) by the ministry of Road Transport and highways which would make it part of the law. So just like a guideline book, making it flexible for the manufacturer to follow. And since ARAI is just a test and certify agency enforcing the set standards to the full extend is currently out of its jurisdiction.

Now testing of these as DReddy says "these crash test videos and reports are not available in the public domain and are solely used by the manufacturers and govt. authorities to certify the vehicle being tested, which is the same practice with any homologation/certification authority across the world.". This is because it is a set of complicated reports far beyond the understanding of a common car buyer or manufacturer doesn't want us customers to know to what extend they have complied with . The BNVSAP simplifies it into star ratings similar to that of the NCAP for easy evaluation of safety. The criteria for BNVSAP is being drawn up by the ministry and will be notified in the following months.

[nijelj]

Originally Posted by johannskaria

DReddy is right we do have all these standards but "India does not have the crash test rating mechanism in place - Bharat New Vehicle Safety Assessment Programme ( BNVSAP)."
.

https://araiindia.com/cpanel/Files/N...eb-Mar2015.pdf

Hope this will help with our safety testing. ARAI has commissioned a crash testing facility at Chakan, Pune

[volkman10]

Mandatory crash tests from October 2017 to make Indian cars safer.

The government is finally enforcing stringent crash test norms to be mandatory for all new cars from October 2017, while for upgrades of existing models, the deadline will be from October 2018. New minimum safety norms, including frontal and side crash tests, will apply to all cars —entry level, small and cheaper models.
As per the new order, cars would be tested for frontal crash norms at 56 kmph, while for the side crash test, it will be at 50 kmph.

Bharat New Vehicle Safety Assessment Programme (BNVSAP), on lines of New Car Assessment Programme (NCAP) in other countries, is likely to judge cars in line with developed market parameters. These crash test norms and assessment programmes have been adopted from the best practices across all entry major countries such as Japan, Europe and the US that have helped develop the most ideal mix for India.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...campaign=cppst

[groom]

Here is the copy of the notification released

[mail4ajo]

Can someone explain why we need to have our own version of the crash safety norms. Why not adopt NCAP or Asian NCAP as is?

I see this as an attempt to water down the globally accepted standards when in reality we need tighter ones for our dreadful driving conditions. Again 2018 time frame is a long way. At least one hope is that manufacturers will now have to start pulling their socks up and act. Enough of taking sub standard and unsafe cars.

[vinit.merchant]

After a long wait, things moving in the right direction, albeit with a waiting period of 2 / 4 years.
Is it only me or does anybody else also feel we are about to see a huge number of car launches before 10/2017 ?

Originally Posted by mail4ajo

Can someone explain why we need to have our own version of the crash safety norms. Why not adopt NCAP or Asian NCAP as is?

It would be more like Indian Accounting Standards & US GAAP. Not much difference. Just like our BS norms, which are in line with the international practice, but usually see a delay of around a year in implementation.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by johannskaria

Now testing of these as DReddy says "these crash test videos and reports are not available in the public domain and are solely used by the manufacturers and govt. authorities to certify the vehicle being tested, which is the same practice with any homologation/certification authority across the world.". This is because it is a set of complicated reports far beyond the understanding of a common car buyer or manufacturer doesn't want us customers to know to what extend they have complied with . The BNVSAP simplifies it into star ratings similar to that of the NCAP for easy evaluation of safety. The criteria for BNVSAP is being drawn up by the ministry and will be notified in the following months.

Always, always, distrust people who tell you the general public is not smart enough to understand something. People like that are from the stone ages!

India is a democracy with more than 800 million voters. Very few of those would argue that they really understand all the details of running a country, whether its economic, financials, politics, etc etc. But every single Indian is considered smart enough to make up his/her own mind what to vote, based on whatever piece of information available to him/her. Whether you understand it all has never ever been a criteria.

Run from people who will tell you: "Let me dumm it down for you so you can understand". Just give me the raw data and if you have a system that simplifies by all means, provide that as well. I will make up my own mind what I want to understand thank you very much!

Sorry for the ranting/raving but seriously, people who claim to know what's good for me, or worse, claim to know what I can understand need to get punched on the nose, no mistake! Who do they think they are?

Now, back on topic, why the hell an Indian system/standard? Would that just not push up the cost of the cars, and also introduce more bureaucracy? Which again, comes as a cost to the Indian public?

Jeroen

[mail4ajo]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Now, back on topic, why the hell an Indian system/standard? Would that just not push up the cost of the cars, and also introduce more bureaucracy? Which again, comes as a cost to the Indian public?
Jeroen

Exactly...why? I as a car buyer or any average buyer do not need to understand the the in depth criteria for safety. I just need to understand what are my chances to survive a crash at a particular speed. Is it 20%, 50% or 80%. I like to see cars rated with stars like in NCAP. I can clearly see more stars mean better survival chances.