Global NCAP will be conducting a third series of crash tests on Indian cars and all this is a part of the Safer Cars in India campaign.
India is one of the top car markets in the world and a very lucrative one at that. But at the same time, it is notorious for lacking structural integrity and as per the past records, it doesn’t fare well as far as safety standards are concerned. Consumers have full rights to be aware of their vehicle’s safety standards and hence Global NCAP promotes tougher vehicle safety regulations.
Under the ‘Safer Cars for India Campaign’, NCAP conducted tests on seven cars and the results for the tests will be out in two weeks as stated by Mr. Alejandro Furas, Technical Director, Global NCAP. Voluntary initiatives need to be taken in terms of safety as the small cars account to almost 20% of the total production and customers too expect basic levels of safety as standard.
In the earlier crash tests in 2014, India’s top selling hatchbacks including the Maruti Alto 800, Tata Nano, Hyundai i10 and Volkswagen Polo received zero star adult protection ratings after a dismal performance in the crash test. In response to the huge publicity and the dire performance of tests, Volkswagen immediately decided to offer dual front airbags as standard in all variants of the Polo.
In November 2014, Datsun and Maruti were under heavy fire when their highest selling models, the GO and Swift respectively, received zero star adult protection rating. Certain structural changes were made after this. Datsun even started offering an optional driver side airbag on the top variant of the GO.
Global NCAP Conducts Crash Tests Again
– India being one of the top car markets in the world lacks safety standards
– The results for the third series of the crash tests will be out in the next two weeks
– Several car manufacturers made some changes to their cars after the 2014 NCAP crash tests
