[audioholic]

Originally Posted by alpha1

Which all driver assistance will be mandatory as a part of this rule?

As a part of mandatory requirement, it will mostly be Automatic Emergency Braking and not the other fancy features like Adaptive cruise control and lane departure warning.

AEB is now offered standard on many cars abroad and even on hatchbacks like the Baleno, Nissan Micra, etc. It does not need a whole bunch of sensors and so on and simply works with a Radar and ESP on board. For the ones who are very skeptical about this, this is not a system which will give you beeps and warnings all the time. It is quite non interventional until there is an apparent collision, like say you get too close to a car and show no signs of braking, or a car suddenly merges into your path and you get too close to it and so on.

This is a system most manufacturers can easily install for a decent cost compared to full fledged ADAS which is never a mandate until now in any country and is also expensive to implement in smaller cars.

That said, it is a welcome move by the Government. There is no doubt that infrastructure is lacking in most of the country. However, providing only infrastructure wont change the minds of majority of the drivers. Do you feel that by giving good roads, proper lane markings, the driving habits will become safe? I can bet not. While infrastructure should be given focus in parallel, it is not an alternative to this move. AEB can prevent a drunk driver from ramming into a vehicle ahead, and can save your kid from being run over by a rash driver. Road infrastructure cant solve this issue of bad driving.

The next big thing I dream of is enforcement, which is more of a dream since the problem needs to be tackled at a broad level, instead of things like this, where you only have to hold the neck of a few manufacturers.

Originally Posted by M35

We shall all apply brakes Sir; please ensure that those are all in order and functional- the safety features and equipments that the cars fitted with.

Not everyone shall apply brakes like you sir Hence is this move. If so I guess this rule will apply for every single vehicle sold in the country.

[AlphaKilo]

Originally Posted by audioholic

...However, providing only infrastructure wont change the minds of majority of the drivers. Do you feel that by giving good roads, proper lane markings, the driving habits will become safe? I can bet not...

Well psychologically speaking, yes. It is the first step. For example if we see a very cleanly maintained spot, we would think twice before littering there when the dustbins are clearly in sight. We humans are social animals and especially us Indians are way too concerned about what the people around us think about us. Hence, giving the infrastructure is the first step towards achieving driving discipline. Someone has to bell the cat and why should the Government not begin with by provinding the infrastructure and then start enforcing/implementing strict rules.

My question is, what is point of enforcing stop before the stopline rule in a red signal when the line marking on the road is not visible at all?
- Give me the lane marking (uniform throughout the country) and then fine me if I am not sticking to the lane.
- Give me the uniform speed limit on the NH, state and city limit roads that is valid throughout the country and then fine me if I do not stick to it.

Now the situation is such that even when people want to follow rules, it is so different in different states and the licencing education is so different that there is literally no right or wrong way to do something. Simply punishing people will not serve any cause expect the cash flow for the government.

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by AlphaKilo

Now the situation is such that even when people want to follow rules, it is so different in different states and the licencing education is so different that there is literally no right or wrong way to do something. Simply punishing people will not serve any cause expect the cash flow for the government.

What percentage of the drivers in India want to follow rules? I would say very few. Not even half if I see the way people behave on the roads. Half could account to commercial vehicles itself. How on earth will mandating these features be like punishing drivers? And where is the cash flow to the Government?

What I feel is that people are considering Government bodies + Auto manufacturers + Local authorities etc to be the same. It is evident in this case. The government is planning to instruct manufacturers to follow certain rules. In the same way, it should instruct local authorities to do their part of the job. We cant link one with the other especially when the expected tasks to be done by each stakeholder are completely different.

[srishiva]

Shouldn't use of brains in people be made mandatory first ? I agree that we need to upgrade our road infrastructure first. Roads need to have uniform lane widths, good markings, signages etc consistently everywhere. Stop digging just laid roads and forget the ditches until something happens. There is a whole lot of things that needs to be done for everything to work smoothly.

[AlphaKilo]

Originally Posted by audioholic

What percentage of the drivers in India want to follow rules? I would say very few. Not even half if I see the way people behave on the roads. Half could account to commercial vehicles itself. How on earth will mandating these features be like punishing drivers? And where is the cash flow to the Government?

Simply pushing for fines will only lead to cash flow (if collected legally). The % of drivers who want to adher to, can be counted as the number of members in TBHP. I hope so!

Originally Posted by audioholic

What I feel is that people are considering Government bodies + Auto manufacturers + Local authorities etc to be the same. It is evident in this case. The government is planning to instruct manufacturers to follow certain rules. In the same way, it should instruct local authorities to do their part of the job. We cant link one with the other especially when the expected tasks to be done by each stakeholder are completely different.

No doubt. I was not rebutting your idea but in general the psychology is such that we can only adhere to what we can see.

I have already said this in one another post of mine. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. In our chain of system, the last man standing, may it be the police constable or the RTO or ourselves the aam aadmi is morally responsible for implementing/following/adhering to rules and regulations. A PM/President or the Chief IAS secretary can come up with the cleverest/smartest/harshest idea/punishment but as long as the last man standing in the chain doesn't want to implement it, nothing can be done.

From a technical point of view, I saw an accident on last sunday in one of the German Autobahns. An Audi Q7 had braked suddenly from 160+ speeds to a standstill (thanks to its sensor suite of distance measuring radars etc) but the ones following the Audi were either not attentive or tailgating or had weaker brakes (i don't know) but they ended up in the boot of the Audi Q7. The result was that the Q7 became a Q3 and a C-class that rear ended had become an A class because of a Superb that had inturn rear ended the c-class. Point being, if technology is going to be made mandatory, make sure that older cars are either removed from the road or they be reequipped with the technology (at what cost and who will pay for it?). This topic is going to open a completely different can full of worms.

Simply, scrapping cars beyond a certain age (age could be anything, no numbers in mind) is economically and environmentally bad. As long as the vehicle is fit to be on-road, it should be allowed to be on-road.

[blackasta]

Originally Posted by blackasta

If this feature is to be introduced, all, and I mean ALL cars from prime minister's car to municipality garbage dump trucks must have it, there shouldn't be any switch / wire / cable to disable it, and must be implemented on ALL cars from the exact same date/time. Else results shall be disastrous.

Originally Posted by AlphaKilo

An Audi Q7 had braked suddenly from 160+ speeds to a standstill (thanks to its sensor suite of distance measuring radars etc) but the ones following the Audi were either not attentive or tailgating or had weaker brakes (i don't know) but they ended up in the boot of the Audi Q7.

This is exactly the point I was trying to make with my earlier post.

[StarrySky]

Originally Posted by AlphaKilo

An Audi Q7 had braked suddenly from 160+ speeds to a standstill (thanks to its sensor suite of distance measuring radars etc) but the ones following the Audi were either not attentive or tailgating or had weaker brakes (i don't know) but they ended up in the boot of the Audi Q7.

How is it the fault of the AEB system in the Q7 if the drivers following the Q7 were inattentive or tailgating or had weaker brakes? One could argue that without the system, the Q7 would probably have rear ended some other vehicle, bringing at least one other vehicle into the crash.

We see so many accident pictures in the "Accidents in India" thread where cars have driven into the back of stationary vehicles for a variety of reasons (too dark, parked without lights, driver dozing off etc). An AEB system could prevent or reduce the severity of such accidents by bringing down the speed of the car.

I have the experience of driving AEB-equipped cars for more than three years now, some amount of it in heavy traffic conditions. Over more than 40K kilometres, I can count of on my fingers how many times the AEB warning has triggered - and the automatic braking has been initiated 0 times. In my experience, it is quite difficult to trigger even the warning - if you are attentive enough behind the wheel.

[AlphaKilo]

Originally Posted by StarrySky

How is it the fault of the AEB system in the Q7 if the drivers following the Q7 were inattentive or tailgating or had weaker brakes? ...

I never said that it is the fault of the AEB nor the fault of the Audi owner for having purchased a car with this system.

All I wanted to say is that a machine is only as clever as the human behind it. The ones who rear ended the Audi should have had such a similar system that "could" have prevented such an accident in the first place. If a system is made "MANDATORY" then also include the older generation vehicles or make way for them to be off the streets (the latter idea is not my favourite). Since you are in EU region too, I can safely assume that you are familiar with the way things work here. We do see that such assistance systems are not made mandatory here rather the public is educated to use them wisely as an additional safety net.

Making something mandatory is something that I am not a fan of unless it is thoroughly thought through and all (possible) loopholes plugged. Half baked policies like the current back and forth EV policy leads to unnecessary chaos.

[StarrySky]

Originally Posted by AlphaKilo

The ones who rear ended the Audi should have had such a similar system that "could" have prevented such an accident in the first place.

Agree, but..

Originally Posted by AlphaKilo

If a system is made "MANDATORY" then also include the older generation vehicles or make way for them to be off the streets (the latter idea is not my favourite).

I don't see why. Do you think it makes the roads relatively more unsafe for a vehicle without the system? The system does not randomly apply brakes, it intervenes only at the last moment, when the driver does not brake himself or leaves the braking too late. It should not be an issue for a car following, unless as you said in your earlier post, the driver is inattentive or tailgating.

Also, the article mentions that the speed above which the system will be activated will be decided soon, which leaves the possibility that the system may be calibrated to Indian traffic conditions.

I would say that adaptive cruise control may be a bit more of an issue than AEB. There are always occasions when cars join my lane in front and behind my car at the same time. The ACC brakes in response to the car joining in front and this can catch the guy joining behind out. I either disable ACC when approaching such busy roads or keep an eye out for cars joining behind.

Originally Posted by AlphaKilo

Since you are in EU region too, I can safely assume that you are familiar with the way things work here. We do see that such assistance systems are not made mandatory here rather the public is educated to use them wisely as an additional safety net.

The article also mentions that the government is thinking along these lines as these systems will be made mandatory in the West by 2021. EU has taken the lead - related thread (EU makes 11 safety features mandatory in cars from 2021).

[AlphaKilo]

Originally Posted by StarrySky

I don't see why. Do you think it makes the roads relatively more unsafe for a vehicle without the system?...

No, I don't think so. We have been driving "safely" without these assistance systems for quite a while now.

Originally Posted by StarrySky

Also, the article mentions that the speed above which the system will be activated will be decided soon, which leaves the possibility that the system may be calibrated to Indian traffic conditions.

To which Indian traffic condition are they talking about? Delhi? Chennai? Mumbai? Remote locations in Jharkhand? Hills of J&K? Mountains of N-E? Do you see where I am getting to?

Originally Posted by StarrySky

The article also mentions that the government is thinking along these lines as these systems will be made mandatory in the West by 2021. EU has taken the lead - related thread (EU makes 11 safety features mandatory in cars from 2021).

You yourself answered there. You said you lookout for vehicles merging or when such a situation arises. How do you do that? Experience/Taught/self-learned/Common-sense or a combination of all of them. As mentioned by a lot here and in threads "Bad Drivers", I don't see that happening in our country unless the infrastructure is provided and proper education about the technology is made mandatory.

What happened in EU is that the technology was allowed to emerge/develope in the market for several years and once when the governments realised that the time is ripe (based on factors like people have learned to use it properly, manufacturers have ironed out initial bugs...) they are making them mandatory. Not like in ours where even adaptive headlights are not available and people don't (want to) know the difference between the high and low beam, making such a huge step in terms of technology is imho dangerous and lacks foresight. Just by copying EU or any other nation for that matter will not bring every individual in our country to the same level as elsewhere. Every country has its own pace of growth and development.

Just because EU makes it mandatory does not make it the right choice for our country too. The consequences of it in EU itself needs to be seen. The combination of newer gen "safety" equipped vehicles and "non-safety" equipped older vehicles plying alongside each other will be a treat to watch. It is the same as fully autonomous vehicles plying along side manually driven ones. Things are not going to go right until either the human learns to strictly stick to the lines or the machines learn to adapt to our unpredictive behaviour. Both will cause a significant life and property damage before things are taken seriously. To me, when even 1 life is lost, it is a serious loss.

I will say instead/alongside making a technology mandatory, make the education to it also mandatory and encompass all people in it. To clap we need both the hands!