Blog: Round Two of the India Crash Tests

After the success of the first round of the Global NCAP crash tests of made-in-India cars, the agency has now conducted round two. Yes – this time its once again popular and mass cars that have been used. We will be sharing the results of those tests with you soon. I was present at the first of the crash tests conducted in Landsberg, Germany. The car in question? The very popular and best-selling Maruti Suzuki Swift. Now the reason the Swift was chosen is that it is also made in India for export to the Latin American market. The Swift is also a global model, one that does well for Suzuki in Europe and South-East Asia as well. Of course those markets have cars shipped in from plants in Hungary and Japan respectively.

So our interest was only in the made-in-Manesar Swift! And yes this is the current new generation car I’m talking about. The Swift in Latin America has airbags as standard, in India that isn’t the case. The quality of materials used may also differ slightly from the car made at those other global plants I mentioned.

Watch:

How the Swift did – and I mean both the with-airbags and no-airbags model – is something we will share with you next week. At that time we will also reveal the other hatchback that has been crashed. The focus of these tests though is not to create a witch-hunt. Neither is it to point out the flaws in the particular cars or their makers’ manufacturing prowess. No – these are all largely multi-national companies, who sell products – sometimes the same ones – in markets with stringent safety regulations in place. And so they know what to do, and how to do it rather well. That is what we are aiming for here too.

India needs to have its own NCAP programme. But even before we get to that stage – the government certainly needs to step in and make safety regulations tougher. The Indian government has done admirably well in the area of emissions control, with fairly tight environmental norms imposed on all vehicles made and sold here. So why not on safety too? The hope is that the impetus for change that the new government seems to carry, will also bring us some much needed change on this front. And why stop there? There must be safety norms for school buses, public transport in general, and things like seating children below 12 only in the rear of a car (preferably with toddlers and infants in car seats) should also become norm.

Of course there are larger traffic related issues that also need solutions. But we have to start somehwere. And protecting human life – despite the abundance of it on the subcontinent – should surely be the place to start. Shouldn’t it?