[vb-saan]

Originally Posted by sadsack

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Before accepting the ratings of self created agencies such as the NCAP one should look at the accident figures and their causes and their consequences in different countries by taking into account road infrastructure, driving practices, rules awareness, the willingness to follow rules etc. You can see that this is a Herculean task and nobody will do it and it is here that agencies like the NCAP make a space for themselves and survive.
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So what are you trying to say - considering that we are so poor on the above mentioned parameters, there should not be any safety ratings attached to the cars sold in India? Its easy to dismiss these agencies as marketing gimmicks or western influences, but I don't see any alternatives mentioned in your post.

[tbppjpr]

Originally Posted by sadsack

Mr. C. V. Raman of Maruti Suzuki who had very interesting take on the NCAP. He hit the nail on the head when he said that the NCAP rating is mostly a marketing tool and that too in Europe. He went on to say that scoring a zero is not the equivalent of unsafe. He draws a parallel between fuel efficiency ratings and the NCAP crash test ratings.

If you want to rate cars on the basis of mileage then an agency may say that a car which consumes one litre of petrol for 16 kms is the base for the comparison and so that figure will be 0 stars and depending upon the calibration opted for by the agency stars will be allotted. It means that everything is on a relative scale whose base is chosen by the agency, which can sometimes be alright in one context but not alright in others. This point of C V Raman's is significant because it throws light on the way in which these agencies function.

Wow!!! What more can be expected from someone representing Maruti.

It also can be said that the companies like Maruti are using marketing gimmicks by refusing the safety tests on the name of marketing gimmicks.

They just want to keep dumping their below par inferior products to keep profit margins up. They are still selling some of the cars which are built on dead platforms and technology/machinery/tools used in manufacturing those cars are fully depreciated. So their margins are much higher compared to a new model. Why bother investing in R&D for betterment of a product when garbage can easily be sold!

[noopster]

Mod Note: Please keep tempers in check and address the issues rather than attack other members. Some posts have been edited/deleted.

[sadsack]

Since many have quoted me and one has even called my post a rant, another thought that I was critical of crash ratings because they are western, another thought I was lackey of functionaries of Maruti and yet another thought that I had not suggested an alternative, I am putting in this reply.

I am none of the things that you think I am. Read the post carefully and you will see that I have only said that we should be careful about the agendas of agencies that take up this exercise. If the world took notice of the ratings of Standard and Poor as the Standard for investments then most including India will be Poor. Read between the lines that is where the balance required for some proper understanding lies. Otherwise, this indignation will go on, while nothing changes on the ground. It is true that we Indians are notorious when it comes to buying decisions and spending money. We don't want to pay but we want something that is not considered cheap. In this situation it is not easy for companies to see what is essential and what is not.

The alternative that I can suggest is a beginning. If we can think in terms of driving in ways where we considerably reduce risk of an accident then we are perhaps depending less on safety features built into cars. As one of you has quoted all the safety features on a BMW are worthless if you are driving in excess of 300 km/h.

So let us make a beginning by setting in place procedures for issue of licences, procedures for licence cancellations for habitual offenders, let us build better roads without potholes or let us not build NHs that go through villages bisecting them, let us enforce the compliance to safety features like working tail lamps, head lamps and flashers, let us ensure that our cars are in decent condition, let us not try to save 1ml of fuel by driving on the wrong side of the road instead of going to the U turn, let us drive in lanes and follow speed limits, let us not have buses that are jam packed and travelling at 2 kmph over inclines, forcing others to attempt overtakes, let us stop using cell phones while driving and parking in the middle of the road to complete a call.... I can go on.

Safety is not just frontal collision impact, number of airbags, ABS, EBD because all of these are of no use if you driving in a manner where an accident is a given. Safety is never one thing, it is a combination of factors and to flog only one or two things involved in passive safety for me is an exercise in futility. What we require in this country is planning which takes into consideration all the factors that I have mentioned above along with technological ones, not just complaining that we are given inferior and unsafe technology. I am sure most will still be tempted to bash on regardless but I made my point and I believe in its relevance. If you see my previous post had all these things said in a much less obvious manner because I thought given the context they will be self explanatory. Maybe that was a mistake; I should have been more explicit.

My apologies to the moderators for whom I seem to have created a headache and some extra work with my post. I assure you that it was done with the best of intentions and with no ulterior motives. If you think both the posts (the previous and this) should be deleted in order to have some decorum on the forum, please do so. Thank you.

[A350XWB]

Originally Posted by zenren

Those of us who know more about the structural integrity knows that this is for a certain speed that we are speaking about - 64 km/h. However, if any manufacturer tries to claim they have a shell that didn't fail in European crash test without emphasis on the tested speed, the public would never assume that those would not be intact in case the speed is 80 instead of 64.

zenren, I think we understand each other
There are many aspects to safety, as displayed in the video below. This is the crash test done for trailers and as you can clearly see, if the under-run protection bar fails, the driver suffers fatal injuries in most of the cases. How does it work in India? 90% of the people doesn't even know what those bars are for. Same is the case with ABS, Airbags, disc brakes, seat belts and what not. Usual comments from the marketing folks and also many seasoned drivers -
"If you don't drive fast, you don't need airbags"
"If you drive only within city limits, why do you need ABS?"
"Seat belts? I'm not driving fast, so why should I wear it? It only helps in high speed crash"
God save them. We need more awareness to be created among the general public.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL8DQIAqZms

Crash tests evolve over time and the ratings of earlier cars will come down and that's a natural phenomena. When the small overlap test was introduced by IIHS in the US, many of the 5* certified cars failed as they had envisioned such a scenario. If I remember correctly, Volvo was the only car to get a "Good" rating for it at that time. It shows their commitment towards building safer cars, even though regulations never mandated it. That kind of commitment is something which is lacking with car makers here.

[SchumiFan]

Originally Posted by sadsack

As one of you has quoted all the safety features on a BMW are worthless if you are driving in excess of 300 km/h.

So let us make a beginning by setting in place procedures for issue of licences, procedures for licence cancellations for habitual offenders, let us build better roads without potholes or let us not build NHs that go through villages bisecting them, let us enforce the compliance to safety features like working tail lamps, head lamps and flashers, let us ensure that our cars are in decent condition, let us not try to save 1ml of fuel by driving on the wrong side of the road instead of going to the U turn, let us drive in lanes and follow speed limits, let us not have buses that are jam packed and travelling at 2 kmph over inclines, forcing others to attempt overtakes, let us stop using cell phones while driving and parking in the middle of the road to complete a call.... I can go on.
Thank you.

Hit the nail on the head. After the test results have come out, suddenly there seems to be a consensus that ABS and Airbags will save you from death for sure.

The list that you have given above is far worse than not having ABS or Airbags in a car. Like you rightly said, safety is not one thing but a combination of factors. The rate at which we are going, we will probably stop when we are all driving tanks meant for the military. ABS and Airbags are necessary but it is not going to solve all the problems that we have in our country with respect to road safety. Until the mentality of the people driving vehicles on the road is changed, no amount of passive safety equipments is going to help you.

[Hayek]

Originally Posted by SchumiFan

After the test results have come out, suddenly there seems to be a consensus that ABS and Airbags will save you from death for sure.



The list that you have given above is far worse than not having ABS or Airbags in a car. Until the mentality of the people driving vehicles on the road is changed, no amount of passive safety equipments is going to help you.

I have probably posted on this thread once too often, but I had to respond to these statements.

I agree fully that the biggest cause of the obscenely high death toll on Indian road (and I must say, I had not realised how high it is until I Googled while posting on this thread) is the lack of discipline amongst road users, and lack of enforcement of traffic rules. ABS and Airbags will not "save you from death for sure". But I have not seen anyone say that.

Wearing seat belts, together with a safe body shell, ABS and Airbags, however WILL reduce the risk of your being involved in a fatal accident, and also reduce the damage to passengers from a minor shunt. Would the fatality rate fall further if Indian roads were designed like German ones, and Indian road users behaved like Germans? Of course. But you can't change our roads, or other people's behaviour overnight. Hence you do what is in your control. Which is buy a car with a safe body shell, ABS and airbags, and use the seat belts for ALL passengers, and a child seat (in the rear) for kids. Drive defensively. And the odds that you become one of the THIRTY road accidents fatalities we have every HOUR go down.

As for the impact of quality car construction. Check the US IIHS site. In two-vehicle frontal crashes, the driver fatality risk in vehicles with good IIHS front ratings is 46 percent lower than in those rated poor. Those are odds worth paying for.

One last point. Several people have claimed that the Rs. 25,000 or so extra it would cost to buy a car if these safety measures are implemented may force them to stay on two wheelers and increase their risk of facing a fatal accident. That argument is rubbish (not a personal attack, it's an attack on the argument). The NPV of owning a Maruti Alto for 6 years (assuming OTR price of Rs. 250000, 10000 km pa running and 15 kmpl fuel efficiency) is Rs. 372,000, of which almost half is the fuel cost. (This calculation ignores maintenance costs). This would rise to Rs. 390,000 if the price went up by Rs. 25,000. The cost of owning a two wheeler that gives fuel efficiency of 45 kmpl and costs Rs. 50,000 is just Rs. 100,000. So when you move to a entry level car from a two wheeler, you are already increasing your outgo by Rs. 272,000 or 2.72x. A further Rs. 18,000 (0.18x) NPV is unlikely to force too many people to stay on two wheels.

The arguments that car manufacturers are making on why they can't provide safe products are ridiculous. Further, Maruti is particular, is also guilty of deceptive behaviour - by downgrading products in a manner which even a customer who is educated and does research could not tell. I have happily recommended a Swift ZXi to people before the G NCAP test results came out. I would never do that today. Making such tests mandatory is the minimum that the government needs to do - NOW.

[SchumiFan]

Originally Posted by Hayek

I have probably posted on this thread once too often, but I had to respond to these statements.

I agree fully that the biggest cause of the obscenely high death toll on Indian road (and I must say, I had not realised how high it is until I Googled while posting on this thread) is the lack of discipline amongst road users, and lack of enforcement of traffic rules. ABS and Airbags will not "save you from death for sure". But I have not seen anyone say that.

The arguments that car manufacturers are making on why they can't provide safe products are ridiculous. Further, Maruti is particular, is also guilty of deceptive behaviour - by downgrading products in a manner which even a customer who is educated and does research could not tell. I have happily recommended a Swift ZXi to people before the G NCAP test results came out. I would never do that today. Making such tests mandatory is the minimum that the government needs to do - NOW.

The Swift Z variant scored 3 stars I believe which is 'safe' according to NCAP, Even though the construction was deemed unstable.

Also like I previously posted earlier, it is not a lack of options for safety but buyers conveniently stating arguments that suit their reason behind buying things. The Ritz comes at a significantly lower price than Swift and if the consumers are intent on securing their family's safety they will as well buy it.

Figo failed the test as well, i10 failed it too along with Nano and Alto. Why target Datsun and Maruti here while the majority of low budget cars don't have the necessary safety measures in the car.

Except for VW no other manufacturers have taken corrective measures even though they have had time to do it. If I am right, they have even launched new products with 'nil' safety features.

[A350XWB]

Originally Posted by SchumiFan

The Swift Z variant scored 3 stars I believe which is 'safe' according to NCAP, Even though the construction was deemed unstable.

As far as I can see, the major point in this thread is not the stars scored or the unstable passenger compartment, but the indifferent attitude of Suzuki towards it's largest market in the world. India is the bread and butter market for Suzuki, they have all the technology available to make safe cars, which they actually do, using their Magyar plant for European models but still, make cost cutting measures and give Indians, an unstable passenger compartment. Nothing is stopping them to provide the same rigid structure which they provide in Europe.

Originally Posted by SchumiFan

The Ritz comes at a significantly lower price than Swift and if the consumers are intent on securing their family's safety they will as well buy it.

Have anybody crash tested the Indian Ritz? No. And from the latest results, it is almost certain that Maruti has tampered with the structure of Ritz also, to make it less stable under impact, compared to the Splash, as it is known in EU.

Originally Posted by SchumiFan

Figo failed the test as well, i10 failed it too along with Nano and Alto. Why target Datsun and Maruti here while the majority of low budget cars don't have the necessary safety measures in the car.

I hope you have seen this thread on the their crash test. It also has run to 280 posts, until this one came up. All those models are also targeted in that thread.
One more point to note is that VW Polo's and Ford Figo's structure were deemed stable, unlike the Swift's. Also, the test ratings default to 0*, if airbags are absent. With dual airbags and a stable cabin, the Polo scored 4* and if they had tested the Figo with dual airbags, I'm sure that it would have scored better than the Swift, as it already has a stable passenger cabin, which the Swift lacks.

Originally Posted by SchumiFan

Except for VW no other manufacturers have taken corrective measures even though they have had time to do it. If I am right, they have even launched new products with 'nil' safety features.

If other manufacturers do something wrong, that still does not justify what Maruti is doing! It is bad to knowingly re-engineer a car to lower safety margins, even when they have the technology and means to make it safer, to your largest customer base. In the forum, before the crash test, it was believed that as the EU Swift had scored 5* in Euro NCAP and had a stable passenger cabin, the Indian Swift will also fare well and the passenger cabin at least will be the same and stable. It came as a shock to people that Maruti actually tampers with the structure and treats it's largest market as second class citizens. That's all

[vivriti]

Crash test speeds have been termed by some as not matching conditions in Indian cities where cars move at 30-40 kmph.

What they don't realise is that, a car is very less likely to hit a wall at 30 kmph than another vehicle which is also likely to be moving at similar or higher speeds. The relative speed can easily be 60-70 or even more.

Whats worse is that the other vehicle is likely a bus or truck and they will be like a moving wall with low impact absorption. As speed increases, damage increases exponentially .

[SchumiFan]

Originally Posted by A350XWB

It came as a shock to people that Maruti actually tampers with the structure and treats it's largest market as second class citizens. That's all

The NCAP ratings are for European countries or Latin Countries where there is such a law applicable. I am not a fully sure if we have a corresponding procedure in India. If yes, I am sure Maruti is passing those, else they will not be able to release the car in the country.

The problem isn't the player but the rules of the game. If you want the player to adhere to certain rules, frame them correctly. As of now, Maruti isn't doing anything illegal. They are here to do business and profitability is the name of the game.

If the proposed rule change about cars to mandatorily have ABS/Airbags comes into place and if Maruti doesn't follow it. Then we have an issue. Right now the issue is more to do with the Govt.'s lax standards than Maruti's different standards for different countries.

[atlantis0965]

hi
This is my second post on this thread.

I happened to read a few times in the thread about the crash test speeds being at about 64km/hour abroad and 56km/hour in India. Now what exactly is the basis for these values because should it not be based on the highest speed limit in toll roads with separate lanes for opposing traffic and double of the speed limit in single lane roads ? or in an ideal case the highest of the two? ( sorry if it is a stupid question and if you think it is stupid please do not continue reading this post)

I agree the above conditions are probably taking the limits to the extreme since the probability and the factors involved in calculating the same are all based on costs.

Now costs are incurred by both the manufacturer in making the car and the customer in buying it and obviously all of us want to cut costs and it will be fair to do so as long as it is legal.

So i guess all the other arguments that are happening here are based on moral values which i am sorry to say cannot be changed that easily .

[rajneeesh]

I was spending some time on the telly last evening. ET Now was showing a programme on ROad safety sponsored by MSIL and all sorts of worthies were waxing eloquent about the need for making safety a tp priority for all . At the Sametime NDTV has a show sponsored by DIageo which was talking about the GLobal NCAP results and repeatedly showing videos of a Swift undergoing a crasth test and the front of the car virtually disintegrating.

Quite an irony as far as the sponsors were concerned. A car maker who runs different production lines for the same model for domest ic and export markets and a liqour company.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by sadsack

Mr. C. V. Raman of Maruti Suzuki who had very interesting take on the NCAP. He hit the nail on the head when he said that the NCAP rating is mostly a marketing tool and that too in Europe. He went on to say that scoring a zero is not the equivalent of unsafe. He draws a parallel between fuel efficiency ratings and the NCAP crash test ratings.

Remember the classic saying (It actually comes from a famous British court case)... He would say that, wouldn't he!

Sorry, but you might just as well ask a car salesman, and we have whole threads about the nonsense that they talk.

I am absolutely with you on the importance of driver training, testing, licensing and law enforcement. It is drivers that cause accidents, not cars. But, even if this started, in earnest, this very day, it would take a generation before the roads are free of people who cannot actually drive properly or safely. I don't know about how long to change the attitudes behind rash and aggressive driving.

Even if we do start today, we cannot expect to see much difference in two years --- but we can have safer cars on the roads in two years, with the percentage rising slowly.

I can't see why anybody should have a problem with cars being safer?

[A350XWB]

Originally Posted by SchumiFan

As of now, Maruti isn't doing anything illegal. They are here to do business and profitability is the name of the game.
Right now the issue is more to do with the Govt.'s lax standards than Maruti's different standards for different countries.

There are two things - Regulations & Ethics. Nobody is accusing Maruti of violating regulations, if there are any in place. It is more about ethics and the public comments from the management to the tune of "we don't really care for your safety" or "ask your government to make us give you safer cars" or "you deserve only this much". Being the market leader and India being the largest global market for Suzuki, it is not just acceptable. Think about VW or Toyota. They are not the market leaders, but still, they made at least airbags available in most/all of the variants. Let the driving force be anything - marketing, mud slinging at others etc etc. But finally, is the customer getting a benefit? Yes. That is the difference!
As I mentioned earlier, when NHTSA introduced the small overlap frontal crash test, all the cars failed, apart from the Volvo ones. What does it tell you about Volvo? They have always been in the forefront of safety innovations and they made a safer car, even when there was no regulation stipulating something like that. For them, people who survived in crashes is the biggest testimony for their cars (just look at some of the Volvo ads). So, the bottom line is - is Maruti doing something illegal? No. Are they unethical and indifferent to the Indian customers? Yes! (Just like many others)