Blog: Safer Cars For India – Attitudes Need Altering

“It wouldn’t happen to me.” “Oh I am extra careful.” “Please don’t tell me what to do with my child.” These are just some of the many things I’ve heard so often when I have tried to point out the right or safer way to drive or use a vehicle. That is the thing with attitudes – they are usually well entrenched and difficult to change.

But that does not mean they can’t be! Now in India many of us like to live by the rule of the law. Of course I am being snarky, because that really translates to living under the fear of the fine! No traffic or safety measure has ever been adopted in India out of pure good sense. Nope, it was always the worry of being ‘challaned’ that got people to move! Take Delhi’s seatbelt wearing citizens for example. Or even the non-drinking drivers in Mumbai. It was policed – effectively at that – and hence now people do think twice before they get going.

So if that’s what it takes, let’s have the better policies and laws please. Let’s empower the authorities to implement these laws. But not at the expense of police brutality please. Simple things – kids below 12 always in the back seat, seatbelts must be worn whether in the front or rear seats, helmets for all riders and pillion riders, higher fines for using your cellphone while driving, and lastly – very high fines for jumping a red light or using your high beam at night.

And what about the flipside? The road safety policy the government is busy drafting must include the above laws – with federal charge to impellent nationally – and not left to the states. Plus some basic safety measures in our vehicles too – mandated by law. Dual airbags and ABS, crash testing certificates, and seatbelts with pretensioners as standard. That’s not asking for much.

The cost of the equipment I am mentioning isn’t high – and so don’t believe any car salesman who will tell you it is. Yes to replace a deployed airbag you may have some expenses on your hands – because it’s a new airbag that must be installed, as well as the panels through which the first airbag erupted that must be replaced. But it’s very sad that buyers of even high-end cars – the luxury brigade who you would imagine have not just the money – but the better sense – actually asking the dealers to disable to disengage the airbags. Why? For fear that they will deploy in a low speed accident for nothing and they’d have to incur a cost for – yes – ‘nothing’.

Unless we change our attitudes, it will therefore take policing and laws. Sad, but true. It should be we ourselves who should value our lives, and those of our loved ones, the people who work with/for us, and even just the next human being. But since we don’t, for now I look to the government to step in. After all it IS a matter of life and death, now isn’t it?