[McLaren Roxx]

What they should make mandatory instead is a Tyre Pressure Monitoring System for all road vehicles. It is a life-saving safety device.

[Turbohead]

Apart from the right air pressure ( which is a serious factor) vehicles should get their worn out tyres changed.

I find this an issue in almost all classes of vehicles( private and public owned) Worn out tyres usually have poor water channeling and are prone to aquaplaning. Also tyres harden with age thereby increases braking distances. But almost nobody gives a damn.

[varunsangal]

Instead of making nitrogen mandatory, the government should make tire replacement at the recommended tread depth mandatory.

Our economics champions make it a point to run the tires till they are bald. While this may work if the person never goes past second gear (read no tire bursts), it does no good for a high speed highway drives.

Europe and some other countries have excellent rules around tire maintenance, about time we did the same.

[G V Krishna]

I wonder why the government does not think on constructing properly engineered roads? Why the design didn't take-care of the gorges created in between the bridges? Road construction is just not laying layers of tar/concrete. They should be constructed in such a way to avoid accidents and even when accidents happen, the damage is low. I doubt how many of the roads (Express ways, bridges, tunnels, whatever) constructed as late as 2-4 years back are designed to 'Fail-Safe'. I remember other bus accidents where the poor design of the highway had a role.

Had this been in USA or EU, there would have been serious class action suits on the responsible Road Authority, the Company that built the road and of-course the Bus operator. That very liability is missing in India.

All we have is 'Chalta-hain' attitude. There is no long-term plan, no scientific vision. I can quote many examples of Infra Development projects across the nation that are being build and were built in the last 4 years that are not even capable of catering to the current needs forget about a decade from now (Hyderabad Metro, Toll booths on major junctions on high ways across the nation, many newly constructed flyovers - to quote a few).

Though off-topic, how many times Mumbai should submerge during rains to have a permanent fix in place? How many droughts and subsequent floods are required in Chennai to have things fixed? How many people are suffering in Bangalore due to traffic congestion? How much is the money and time the nation is losing due to this traffic congestion? What are the governments doing to address these -- Oh I forgot in Bangalore they are busy trying to stay in power, while people at the center are trying to takeover or have their way across the country, elsewhere leaders are busy bulldozing previous government activities and in another place busy in down playing the water crisis. I don't see there would be an end to these at least in the near future and proper Infra getting developed. May be I'm being pessimistic? Sorry if I had touched the political nerve - My views are totally personal and not to accuse or ridicule anyone.

[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by McLaren Roxx

What they should make mandatory instead is a Tyre Pressure Monitoring System for all road vehicles. It is a life-saving safety device.

TPMS is a mandatory OE inclusion for Euro-V and later vehicles, similar to headlight levelling adjusters that were mandatory in Euro-III/BS3 and later vehicles. I am not sure whether BS6 criteria includes TPMS as a mandatory requirement, but I hope it is.

[blackasta]

I am not surprised considering the quixotic vision of the powers that be. This is what happens when you.... oh well I don't want to get into that !

Aircraft tires are mandatorily filled with Nitrogen for the extreme temperatures they endure. Details here.

But I find no reason why regular commuter cars / trucks / buses need to be filled with Nitrogen.

I have been driving since 2007, and have never filled Nitrogen ever. What I do is check the tire pressure of my car every fortnight, and top off either at the pump or at home using my portable compressor. Yet to face an explosive decompression till date.

Just a suggestion (which may be wild suggestions to these people) - fix the potholes? the broken sidewalks? maybe mandate TPMS? Make the CF for commercial vehicles worthwhile instead of the farce they are right now?

[sreeharipv]

Originally Posted by GTO

Important to note what triggered it:

Never been a believer of filling nitrogen in my tyres. Here's an excellent article from Jalopnik:

I find Jalopnik's observation of absence of 21% oxygen inside the tyre helping preventing fire in any meaningful way rather hilarious.

[vikred]

Originally Posted by Who_are_you

How will they check if I am using Nitrogen or air in my car? Govt needs to set its priority in right order.

Good question. Since the govt cannot directly enforce this rule, just like your car's pollution-under-control status, it'd require users to have their cars certified from Nitrogen filling stations. Validity would be 1-2 months (?).

[pganapathy]

The reality is nitrogen makes a very minor difference in road cars. The government seems to be picking and choosing simplistic arguments to show they are concerned, when the reality is they should be working on more important things like ensuring the roads are good/safe/well designed etc. That unfortunately requires political will to ensure good design and execution, because that ends the gravy train (road maintenance and tolls).

[sushantr5]

Sometimes I think our honourable Road and Transport Minister has more tech tricks in his kitty than any high tech automobile R & D. Just today in the parliament he was talking about stopping drunk driving using solution his department devised. Solution is fitting a device in a car which will take breathing sample and then only it will start if it does not detect alcohol. I hope he does not make compulsion on Automobile Manufacturer to fit his invention.

Point is, we do not need to have solutions to our problem which are discussed in barber shop or gully corner. Making nitrogen compulsory is one such solution.

Every problem has simple solution which is already proven in many countries; strict law enforcement of existing laws.

I understand Minister is outspoken. At least he speaks. I watch partliament proceedings when he speaks, in the hope that Motor Vehicle Amendment act tabling in the house.

[BeantownThinker]

Originally Posted by McLaren Roxx

What they should make mandatory instead is a Tyre Pressure Monitoring System for all road vehicles. It is a life-saving safety device.

I am in complete agreement with this. TPMS should indeed be part of the OEM kit.

Information is a powerful tool. If I do have a tool that tells me that my car tyres are under or over inflated, I will do something about this. This in itself will cut down considerably the risk of tyre failure.

Now coming to nitrogen in tyres, I am not convinced this has any great benefit in everyday road use tyres. I have been driving for about 15 years now and all loss of pressures I have seen is due to external factors like nails, etc. I have a very erratic habit of checking tyre pressure and topping up. Sometimes I don't check for 2 or 3 months. Despite this the loss of pressure I see is only about 1 or 2 psi.

[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by sushantr5

Just today in the parliament he was talking about stopping drunk driving using solution his department devised. Solution is fitting a device in a car which will take breathing sample and then only it will start if it does not detect alcohol. I hope he does not make compulsion on Automobile Manufacturer to fit his invention.

Such a device, called an alcohol ignition interlock device, is already in use in many parts of the world, including in Australia. It's main application is for habitual offenders, but I'd love to see such devices installed on every commercial vehicle in the country, especially all highway-going HGVs and all State Transport buses.

[gjnnbagal]

Seems to be the propaganda to boost sale of nitrogen filling machine and/or it's components and silicon related industry which is owned/invested heavily by some politician

Rather, Government should implement stringent driving licence issuing process to increase road safety

[pravint]

Here is what Continental has to say about Nitrogen in tyres:
https://www.continentaltire.com/news/nitrogen-vs-air-what-right-my-tire

[Slowjet]

My view and experience:
1. You get free air at petrol pumps. But for about 23% nitrogen you end up paying Rs. 40/-.
2. I was told about 12 years back when Nitrogen availability had just started in India that once filled, the pressure will remain for 6 months!!! The reduction in tyre pressure is similar to normal air
3. I was told that it will improve the fuel efficiency of my car but I could not find any difference. Indica turbo always returned around 22.5 kmpl with AC and 23.5 kmpl without AC on highway
4. Rather than coming out with ideas that are difficult to validate in real world, like how would you know whether I have filled nitrogen, the job of the government should be make our roads more driver friendly, safer.
5. Laws should be strictly enforced for errant drivers. Heavy fines (which they have done in some cases) along with some duration in jail, may be 3 days or more depending on the offence. This will act as a deterrent.
6. Making traffic police responsible towards their duty. I have seen they do not work upto the mark. I have seen guys without helmets, signal breaking, triple seat etc and traffic police is ignore them. If required, recruit more people.
7. By the way, one thing I have not understood is that for every vehicle purchased, there is Road tax. Roads are constructed by PWD, we pay toll for highways etc. So why one has to pay to RTO such an big amount for vehicle registraation, what for?? Just to give me a number and do some checks before it gets registered (which I doubt they do it)?