Pedestrian safety features mandatory for cars from Oct 2018

At the Global New Car Assessment Program (GNCAP) World Congress, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) announced that from October 2018, new cars in India would come with pedestrian safety features including a new design of bonnets to reduce the impact on pedestrians during accidents. By 2023, electronic stability control (ESC) and autonomous emergency braking (AEB) are also expected to be made compulsory.

The organisation is hosting the first World Congress at the Buddh International Circuit. As a part of the event, the organization has launched the ‘Stop The Crash’ campaign and conducted live demonstrations of advanced crash avoidance technologies.

The campaign was launched in India as the country accounts for the largest number of road accident fatalities in the world. Vehicles equipped with ESC, ABS and AEB were used for the live demos to showcase their effectiveness in reducing road accidents and fatalities.

The main aim of this World Congress is to get policy makers, safety experts and fleet managers to a common platform to discuss future policies. It was also noted that while India doesn’t have a Bharat New Car Assessment Program (BNCAP), the success and experience of NCAP programs in emerging markets like Latin America and South East Asia could be used to make cars safer in India and Africa.