India set to make crash tests mandatory for all vehicles

Stringent tests are on the cards, and several popular car models are in danger of being phased out, unless they go in for major technology upgradations.Maruti 800, Esteem, Versa, Omni, Ford Ikon and the half-a-century-old Ambassador, in their present form, are likely to fail the proposed crash tests.

Crash tests are meant to check if a vehicle moving at 40 km per hour breaks fully without harming passengers. “For a vehicle to clear the test, its automotive technology should be modernised, for which its maker will have to invest heavily in upgradation, or phase it out,” said a senior official of the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), the country’s largest testing and homologating body.

The ministry of road transport and highways, which has finalised the draft ‘automotive industry standards’ for the new crash tests (frontal crash and frontal off-set and side-on impact crash safety tests), is awaiting adequate testing facilities.

The government is aligning itself with the standards of Economic Commission of Europe on these safety tests. The testing facilities are coming up at ARAI in Pune and the different centres of National Automotive Testing & R&D Infrastructure Project.

Currently, the steering-impact test and the seat-belt anchorage test are mandatory. These are far lighter than the international norm where cars have to undergo frontal, frontal-off set and side-on impact crash safety tests before being launched.

According to an industry source, these safety norms, which may come into effect by 2008-end or early 2009, will see the phasing out of vehicles not meeting them.

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Soon airbags and ABS would become compulsory.We may also get curtain airbags something manufacturers never even deemed necessary,safety so far treated as a luxury item will become more of a necessity .Also quite a few vehicles may just have problems clearing the tests forget getting good scores way to go government of India,finally a good move.