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-   -   Safety last? Maruti Chairman Mr. R.C. Bhargava's controversial statements (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/road-safety/157597-safety-last-maruti-chairman-mr-r-c-bhargavas-controversial-statements-27.html)

Right balanced statement. Completely agree! Can't just point finger at other things and make this less relevant. Good road infrastructure, Strict driving license process and test, Good vehicle structure with important safety features are all equally important.

There is no point buying a 5 star safety rated car, when people don't wear seat belts or don't replace worn-out tyres or get shady body repairs done from local mechanic or put bull bars making airbags ineffective or carry more passengers than car is designed for.

To an extent I agree with Mr Bhargava that road safety is big factor in accident. There may be thousands of flaws or areas of improvements in our road safety norms, but none of these can be excuse to make unsafe cars.

Safety comes at a price, which is not only at time of purchase but also goes on with post purchase maintenance. And in price sensetive market like ours , Mr Bhargava knows that strict safety norms means higher price and lower sales.

So until the roads in India become safe and regulations and enforcement of vehicle fitness by the government improves drastically his company will not improve safety of their cars. Despite competitors giving safer cars at same price point his company will continue milking its customers.

Suzuki always had models that met crash testing norms in other markets. It's very sad that they carry this lame attitude in India, despite holding largest market share. No wonder they're losing market share in a growing market. There is absolutely no sense in what Mr. RCB is pointing. Crash ratings in a way are anti thesis to Road safety, number of accidents. They're supposed to protect occupants in the event of accidents, not preventing them.

Imagine, if only Maruti gives well built cars with its no frills service experience. Isn't it the unicorn we all have been searching for?

"Global" NCAP is a darn fancy name for a UK registered charitable organization that tests cars made for India and Africa.
And very interesting to see a whole thread dedicated to bashing Mr. RC Bhargava, largely based on the results of this "charity's" certification program.

Typical whataboutism. I am sure if everyone else started making safe cars and the point he mentioned were fixed, Mr Bhargava would be like what about auto and bus safety where nobody wears seatbelts?

Notice how cunningly said the quote is, "Putting NCAP standards into cars in India will have no significant impact on number of accidents at all". The statement isn't wrong at all factually. Because NCAP looks at the outcome after an accident. It has zero-role in reducing the number of accidents.

Also, Mr Bhargava has a heavy financial incentive to make sure Maruti share price doesn't crash. For that, he needs to maximize profits at whatever cost. So as long as people keep buying unsafe cars, he has no incentive to fix that.

Its not like Maruti is not capable of delivering a safe car in India unlike tin can manufacturer Hyundai(Kia). They've delivered Ciaz and Brezza with 4 stars safety which the Korean twins haven't even tried to do even at 40L. He is just guided by his oath to deliver maximum value to shareholders (and therefor to himself), which comes by selling cars with maximum margin, which comes via consumers who keep buying the unsafe cars.

In the end it is up to us as consumers to show with our wallet that we do not want unsafe cars. Unless we do that, we will deliberately be sold inferior quality cars in India.

I feel so sorry for him. For someone with that stature, position and influence has to resort to this kind of narrative, bound by the brand dymanics of Maruti. At first his loyalty is to his company, and I guess he has to defend it, but the brand, bracket and economics in which he needs to run it does not give him any other option, but to make these (In my opinion, kinda helpless) comments of pointing the finger elsewhere. Such is that 'throne of thorns'.
While I don't defend that argument coming from someone who would get an ear on all things automobile, what would be his next best option? Blame the per-capita of the country that buys consistently 50K+ of these unsafe cars month on month?

Another interesting and more relevant interview (in Hindi) with Shashank Srivastava of MSIL:
Link
Highlights:
-GNCAP parameters may not be as per Indian conditions, will welcome Bharat NCAP which will account for different road/driving conditions (but I thought Bharat NCAP pretty much copy-pasted the new GNCAP protocols?)
-claims Global NCAP selects tests equipped variants of cars whose manufacturers participate in the programme, which Maruti does not
-says many Maruti cars have better safety than required by regulation, in ways other than GNCAP ratings

There is some truth to that statement. Active safety devices (like ABS) will prevent some accidents, but a significant reduction in the # of accidents will occur with better driver training and infrastructure.

However, the safety systems (active and passive) will help save many more lives/prevent serious injuries in accidents involving cars.

Both will take a lot of time and effort, but getting the auto industry to add safety features is far easier for a government like ours to do rather than overhauling and cleaning the mess in most RTOs.

Expecting all cars to score above zero in BNCAP. Different road/driving conditions mean that Indians generally don't drive above 50kmph. Do the testing at that speed and give it high weightage compared to highway speeds. Easy win.

Maruti makes cars that sell, and the vast majority of Indians either don’t know or don’t care to put safety first in their purchase decision. This is for a combination of reasons, there is no single cause - budget, lack of information, lack of awareness, lack of interest, government apathy - it is a long list.

The thing to remember is that these sundry points aren’t the ones being discussed. The point is that Maruti makes cars that don’t meet the minimum safety standards set by an internationally respected agency, while other brands both Indian and foreign do.

Important to note that Marutis sold under the Suzuki brand in Europe do meet these standards, so it is not as if they can’t.

Simply put, this is a case of profit over safety. There is no getting around it, no matter how much Mr. Bhargava waffles eloquent.

This is where the genius of the argument he is making comes to the fore. We are talking about the unsafe cars his company sells in India, and he about the million other issues that plague our road infrastructure and licensing systems.

In defending him, you actually brought out the core of his competence in diversionary discussions. He is a bureaucrat, trained in disinformation and diversion so he can talk forever on nothing.

Q. Are your cars unsafe?
A. The infrastructure is terrible, that is what causes accidents. We need Indian standards, an Indian governing body to ensure ongoing vehicle fitness… (an hour later) … proper and effective licensing, drivers education, so you see there is a lot for the government to do.

Laughable, but sad.

Agree, however the purpose of NCAP is to ensure survivability during an accident. This argument from Bhargava is like saying taking health insurance doesn't prevent you from falling sick.

Very typical behaviour by Maruti and Mr Bhargava. Despite being market leaders, Maruti has done absolutely nothing deserving of its vast market share over the last three decades. Single-mindedly obsessed with profitability, the company has demonstrated no proactive moves expected of a market leader. For example, working towards better driver and road safety, pushing the sustainability agenda, educating the public about safer driving practices, improving road infrastructure or doing anything to benefit the lives of the millions of cab drivers using its vehicles.

A market leader is expected to shape the environment alongside the government and other agencies, benefiting all constituents in that market ecosystem. Take the example of ITC - although they make harmful tobacco products, they have been doing things to improve farmer income through the e-choupals, help farmers improve crop yield and living conditions in rural communities etc. A market leader such as HUL is constantly focused on helping Kirana shopkeepers compete during the explosion of modern retail in the last decade, developing and promoting global talent from India for itself and rest of the industry, making a huge push on sustainability and truly trying to study how consumers use its products and mprove their day-to-day life.

None of these market leaders have had such a wide margin in terms of market share, relative to the next largest competitor, that Maruti has enjoyed for decades now in our auto industry. Yet, they have driven these initiatives and truly demonstrated leadership. Whereas Maruti has only demonstrated a day-trader type attitude, focusing on its own short term market share and profits, without lifting a little finger for the people, industry or environment.

So it is not at all surprising that Mr Bhargava would make such red herring statements, like saying a car's safety features would not reduce the number of accidents. This is of course obvious to everyone. The question is what happens when the car does get into an accident. And he conveniently side-steps this question. What more do you expect of the man who opposed the rule for putting a single driver air bag in all cars, then opposed the rule for putting dual airbags in all cars, opposed the rule needing ABS in cars, vehemently opposed the idea of putting six air bags in all cars, opposed BS6 emission norms tooth and nail - and on and on, trying to block every piece of progressive vehicle safety and pollution-reduction regulation in the last 20 years - just to increase Maruti 's profit?

Not only on vehicle safety, but Mr Bhargava and Maruti are also champions of completely self-centred marketing. When they had no Diesel vehicles in their stable, their full page advertisements cried out to consumers about the foolishness of buying diesel vehicles, with numerical comparison tables demonstrating that one had to drive hundreds of thousands of kilometres to break even with a diesel car, as compared to an equivalent petrol car. When they realised these big ads were not fooling customers, and acquired the diesel engine supply rom Fiat to stop market share erosion, Maruti's language changed overnight, celebrating the virtues of diesel fuel efficiency and justifying the fat premiums that they charged for the diesel vehicles. When Maruti botched up their in-house 1.5 diesel engine project just before the BS6 transition, and once again did not have any diesel engines on their hands, the familiar old advertisements reappeared again, claiming how hard it was to reach break-even with the diesel cars. Only Mr Bhargava and Maruti are capable of such unprincipled flip-flops, without any strongly held, honest and consistent conviction as a market leader.

Very soon, Mr. Bhargava cannot even put out the motherhood statement on vehicle safety equipment not reducing the number of accidents any more, because cars will be expected to come with ADAS equipment. These actually prevent accidents and therefore reduce the number of accidents on roads, purely due to better safety equipment in the car. However, the type of cost and investment required to equip their cars with ADAS is not something the stingy and short-sighted Maruti can ever fathom. I am sure, by then, Mr Bhargava will come up with more excuses to discredit ADAS, just like he did to discredit GNCAP, and our media will lap it up and publish full page interviews of this "market leader" who has no idea what real market leadership means.

So I failed my board exams. But instead of reviewing my results, I blame the entire education system, how messed up it is, and that passing the Board exam will never do me good anyway. He is smart and knows how to divert the discussion from his unsafe cars to a different direction to spark a debate.

This guy has a history of making ridiculous comments so I think we should stop taking him seriously. Going by what he said, Maruti should stop providing seat belts in their cars too. What is the point of having a safety feature that protects you after the point of incident.

Thank God, we have Mahindra and Tata who are actually doing their job and bringing in safe cars.

While we all take our time and write how RC Bhargava is giving the statements filled with BS and it even gets some space on the homepage too. By the way, he is correct when he talks about how heavily the cars are taxed in India. I don't find anything ridiculous about this statement on the taxation and driver training part - those too are equally big issues as are the safety in the cars and the driver training/awareness as well as infrastructure part.

Along with this, we need to have threads highlighting the bigger liars we have here in India. At least these Maruti guys accept that they compromise the safety and utter one truth that "our cheap car is still safer than a motorcycle"; what about the ones who sell compromised cars in India with 5 star stickers? It is high time, we put equal, and maybe even more focus on the Hyundai/Kia and bash them for the double standards they follow. You give people a car with features, good performance and fake safety assurance - I see this more dangerous than an RC Bhargav giving out some random statements.