To hell with NCAP Safety Rating

Road safety might mean different things to different people who are driving different vehicles but the result is almost always the same – the bigger vehicle always wins… just an outcome of physics when mass and energy combine. By NCAP standards safest vehicle on the road today is the Road Roller because in a crash nothing will happen to the passenger.

Speed Kills & No car is safe – dont let NCAP fool you… No car is safe!!!

What about safety ratings for Bikes & Motorcycles?That thing doesn’t even have seat belt, crumple zones or airbags and still are able to outrun most cars? So should these bikes be banned? Most accidents happen when people are speeding, and most of them take place at speeds over 120kmph. The biggest example is Paul Walker… people who regularly drive fast above the speed limit… Guys like this  are a menace on the road and should never be glorified! If people want to drive fast they can should do it in a deserted place or on race track not on city roads.

As in all moving objects whenever a lighter vehicle is hit by a heavier vehicle the lighter vehicle is always at a disadvantage.

Say if a walking person is hit by a cyclist then the walking person is vulnerable.

• If a Cyclist is hit by a Motorcyclist then the Cyclist is at a disadvantage.
• If a Motorcyclist is hit by an auto rickshaw the motorcyclist is at a disadvantage.
• If an auto rickshaw is hit by a subcompact car like Alto then the auto rickshaw is at a disadvantage.
• If an Alto is hit by a slightly bigger car from the same company like Sx4 the alto is advantage.
• If a Sedan is hit by a SUV the lighter sedan is at a disadvantage.
• If a SUV is hit by a Bus the SUV is at a disadvantage.
• If a Bus is hit by a Truck carrying heavy load then the bus is at a disadvantage.
• In a crash the driver is at a disadvantage than the front passenger.
• Both the driver and the front passenger is at a disadvantage than the rear passenger.
• The rear passengers are at serious danger in a hatch back or subcompact car if the car is hit from behind by a heavier vehicle at high speed.
• All vehicles are at a disadvantage above 100kms speed.
• All vehicles in the vicinity are also as disadvantage if you are driving above 120kmph.
• You are death on vehicles to yourself and to others above 150kmph, a tyre blast could kill you or even kill others if your vehicle crashes into their vehicle even if they are driving much below 50kmph.

I am not going to explain what would happen if a Truck with 19,000 kg load hits a 2,000 kg sedan car which has a 5 star NCAP safety rating. The first to go out of the window would be the safety rating.

I believe the biggest danger with the safety rating is that it gives the driver a false sense of invincibility… he thinks that the car can survive crashes… The Safety Rating lets him to drive the car at high speed and even believes he can escape unhurt in a crash. This is anything from the truth. In a crash over 120kmph the chances of survival are bleak and you would end up like a vegetable if at all you survive. Most accidents and speed violations are committed by the so called “Safe Cars”. The truth is that SPEED KILLS &  NO CAR IS SAFE.

…luckily the Moron went alone… and didn’t take a family in other car with him to the grave…

One can keep adding hundreds of levels of safety to cars… from quality of nuts and bolts to thickness of steels, rebars, radars, technology etc. But with every level of safety the cost of the car increases… at the same time the equipment doesn’t provide you complete protection… it just shields you a little and in a head on crash (which most of these testing are done)… but against a bigger vehicle you are still vulnerable.

A high speed crash is not as simple as a car hitting a block and coming to a standstill. Most of the time in a high speed crash the first impact is just the beginning of a series of impacts. . The car could get pushed into the oncoming traffic lane… or into the next lane… where it could get hit by other vehicles.  The vehicle could even roll over more than once. The vehicle could get hit from both front and back… the vehicle could even catch fire if petrol leaks from the pipes. Sometimes all of these could happen in a single crash before the vehicle comes to a stop.

Another interesting point to note is all these testing happens at low 60kmph speed and no testing happens above 120kmph. The inverse is true in real life as most life threatening crashes happens at speeds over 120kmph. If two cars traveling at 60kmph hit each other headon then the result is a 120kmph impact. But most cars travel over 100kmph and in such a scenario the resultant is a 200kmph and in such a scenario why are they testing when two cars are traveling at 30kmph speed to collide into each other and result in a 60kmph impact???!!?? They should be crash-testing the car at 120kmph to get the headon impact of 2 cars traveling at 60kmph. When tested at such a speed all cars would fail which is true in real life scenario. So what the fuck are they testing? They might take the farce a little ahead… crash-test at 10Kmph and say their car got 10 Stars.

Even if you consider the NCAP test ratings they test the car to hit a stationary object at 60kmph. This is a senario that can only happen in a traffic light and one car is at halt and the other driver has possibly slept off and rams into the car in front of him at 60kmph. This is  rare case scenario. Then they are not testing what happened to the passengers in the rear of the car which this car crashed into? This means the testing is only 50% of an impact. Why this it considered like this? Do note the Cheating carried out is very subtle and not easy to highlight or detect.

Where the road speeds are higher the danger of crashes are higher. Better way to reduce accidents is to make it mandatory to lower the top-speed of ALL cars to 100kmph. Because 1) Most accidents happen over this speed,

2) It is illegal anyway to drive above the roadspeed of any particular country whether a cop sees you or not!

3) It is easier to brake and maneuver/control a car that is at 100kmph than a car that is at 180kmph. In spite of having such excellent roads in Qatar I find sudden braking a car at 120kmph and above very dangerous. In a bigger country like Saudi it is normal for most cars to travel above 180kmph.

What is NCAP? NCAP is shortform for New Car Assessment Program.

Who make up NCAP?

NCAPs are third-party agencies created to favour some countries and companies to sell their cars in other global markets. After the NCAP itself is made up of car companies from these countries. The method they adopt for this is Car Safety. Take for example Euro NCAP which is made up of European Car Companies & European Government. See below the snapshot from their website homepage:

Made up of Automobile Companies – & 7 European Governments – Is it INDEPENDENT at all?

How can Automobile companies be involved in a Third-Party “independent” testing facility???? It is a complete CON. Even Governments are involved!!!

It is as good as Apple, Samsung, Nokia. etc forming a Phone testing agency and rating Mobile Phones do not give off radiations… such an agency would be a complete joke.

Global NCAP have stated very clearly they are interested in getting involved in emerging “Car Markets” which they call “emerging economies & regions” meaning Asia especially China & India.

Interested in emerging “economies” – why should a safety testing co be interested in economies?!!??

(Now how dependable would the figures given by say an agency run by the Government of India and Maruti, Tata, Mahindra, Force Motors, Bajaj, Etc). Such an agency would be considered a fraud agency… similarly NCAP is a fraud agency of not only passing judgement on competing car companies but also creating political clout to stop competition from selling cars. Such an action is tantamount to proxy (commerce) war not only on the automobile market of that country but also on the economy and jobs of that country. It is a shame that such companies are being encouraged to set up shop in India and other Asian countries when they try to ban those very countries car from selling not only in their countries but also in other countries. Its like the ghost of East India Company all over again!

EuroNCAP tests for protection of car occupants in frontal and side impact, and a component test procedure for assessing the protection of pedestrians, hit by the fronts of cars”.

WTF… you read it right “assessing the protection of pedestrians, hit by the fronts of cars”. Crazy?… you tell me… … Wonder why they don’t give rating based on this part?

Why is big bully UN interfering in everything? Even to buy a car?

UN decides what car you will buy? – Decade of Action – could well mean European Automobile domination by eliminating big Asian car manufacturers by 2020

Taking aim at India’s giant – Maruti

What are the so called “famed” NCAP Safety rating?

• 5 Stars = Side crash injury risk for this vehicle is much less than average
• 4 Stars = Side crash injury risk for this vehicle is less than average to average
• 3 Stars = Side crash injury risk for this vehicle is average to greater than average
• 2 Stars = Side crash injury risk for this vehicle is greater than average
• 1 Star = Side crash injury risk for this vehicle is much greater than average

It vaguely says that the risk is either – great, average or less. WTF is average? What is an Average Crash? Or for that what is an Averagely injured person? This “average” clause is a complete CON.

A car can be considered Safer if it has more of the below list. Of course the more devices that make the car safer to drive also adds to the price tag. So if you are thinking of buying a “safe car” you might as well forget the subcompact versions. Because it doesn’t have a front bumper (or the crumple zone)…. The Bumper starts and ends with your foot rest/pedals. Any crash in a subcompact could affect your legs and your head as you are within a meter away from the point of impact. Anybody expecting even a 100kmph impact 1 meter away and expecting the airbag to save your life can only be considered high on drugs.

See below Volkswagen news clippings from 2010 onwards…when it was almost taken over by Porsche or closed down… yet aiming to conquer the world… obviously they had a “PLAN””.

Volkswagen aims to taker over Electric Car Market

So if your car is going to be rammed by a truck or a bus at high speed and the result is death then what are these safety ratings for? Well Safety Ratings are an intelligent method developed to keep Asian car manufacturing companies out of US and European markets. How else can you stop them from entering your market?

VW 1 Million sales – considered a joke a few years ago! Now its completely possible!!! – This is how they play the game – from both ends.

The Volkswagen Polo car failed too just like the Maruti Suzuki that proves that the quality of both are almost equivalent. OK… Volkswagen very cunningly swapped the car with two airbags which got a four-star rating and then why did not NCAP test a Swift with Airbags? So instead of stating all cars need Airbags what they are trying to do is put down “Indian Manufacturing” the only difference between the base version of Indian Polo and European Polo are the airbags which can be easily upgraded in all cars.

VW cheated on U.S. pollution tests for ‘clean diesels’: Volkswagen called them “clean diesels,” branding them as the fun-to-drive alternatives to hybrids as it dominated the U.S. market for the engine technology.The affected diesel models include: Jetta (model years 2009-15), Beetle (model years 2009-15), Audi A3 (model years 2009-15), Golf (model years 2009-15), and Passat (model years 2012-15).Volkswagen admitted that the cars contained “defeat devices,” after EPA and the state air regulator demanded an explanation for the emission problems.Volkswagen and Audi vehicles from model years 2009 to 2015 have the software, which uses an algorithm that automatically detects when the vehicle is undergoing pollution tests and changes the way it performs. Volkswagen is the world’s biggest auto company, outselling Toyota and General Motors in 2015. The automaker issued a statement saying it is cooperating with the investigation and declined further comment.

These are the kind of games that global players play to keep their top-selling position just like the time when a popular car review show made fun of Mahindra Reva (Gwiz) at the same time General Motors were bidding to buy that company… this was a paid attempt to demoralise Reva company and to send bad vibes about the car and to sell it cheap. Why would GM try to buy a company that even auto review show finds funny? Think about it a bit. Finally Reva was bought by Mahindra and are now developing a wider range of Electric cars.

The Top 5 Countries with the Highest Number of Motor Vehicle Deaths Per Capita: 

The Top 5 Countries with the Highest Number of Motor Vehicle Deaths Per Capita

Due to our higher population the number of death would show as high. We would have more people below the poverty line, more millionaires, more mobile ownership, more schools, more colleges, more hospitals, more muslims than any muslim country, more christians than any christian country, etc. Ratio it down to the population and the fact is India has the lowest motor accidents per capita. Due to the following:

1. Low preference of car-ownership to public transport.

2. Slow speed of Indian roads and

3. Road conditions where potholes act as speed breakers

India has one of the lowest deaths in Car accidents. Lets not confuse this with the traffic accidents where pedestrians are hit while crossing the road or the odd bus that falls into the river. These are very cleverly not differentiated. What has to be accounted is a car-hit-car death rate. Even if you dont consider this event you have to ratio it with the Indian population and we have the lowest car-hit-car death rates in the world. Also most high speed accidents occur above 100kmph while the testing is done for a 60kmph impact. This would mean both cars are traveling at 30kmph which is absurd!!! This is done so because above 100 to 120kmph all cars perform badly. THERE IS NO SAFE CAR. That should be the message.

Making cars are a labour intensive process and in spite of the number of machines & robots involved in car manufacturing there is still a lot of labour involved. Asian markets due to their higher population will always have the advantage on any labour intensive product. As the cost of living increase all over the world due to the increase in the price of oil the Asian markets have a absolute advantage over labour cost vs cost of living. Actually India with its rising inflation is in the process of losing this labour advantage to its neighboring countries. Today the Nano is almost 3 times its released price of Rs 100,000.

Many more cars like Nano, E2O, Bajaj are breaking into the market and these are much more suited to the Indian conditions than Europe or US. Such cars take out the wind from the sails of imported cars companies… especially in conditions of increasing petrol prices. US & European companies are finding such low cost cars a pain in the ass. They just cant press the “delete” button and expect these competition to go away… so now the delete button has been renamed “NCAP”

Global NCAP calls for witdrawal of Datsun Go – The “Delete” button has started to make noise!!!

VW largestAutomaker by 2018… in another 4 yrs… I thought Hitler & his men were dead…

By killing competition the vacuum can be filled in by car companies like Volkswagen!

If there is no safety crash test on trucks, buses and mass public carriers then why is there a  crash tests on cars?… the answer is linked to “process of marketing”… the process of creating in the mind of a buyer that he is buying a “safe car” whereas there is no such thing as a safe car.

The bottom line is… no matter what car you are driving in any part of the world if a heavier vehicle hits you (or you hit a heavier vehicle)… the one in the smaller vehicle will be in serious danger. Subcompacts or small cars have the greatest danger because they do not have a “nose” or bumper or bonnet.. yes they have but it is so tiny that by the time the impact happens its too late. Nano and E2O in that concern are safe cars as their speed is arrested around 100kmph and 80kmph respectively. In my opinion these two are the safest car one can buy as gift to their children while the most dangerous are Alto and Swift as the Alto is capable of reaching 120kmph and even looks very dangerous at that speed on thin tyre while Swift is capable of reaching 180kmph. These two are the most dangerous vehicle for the kids in my opinion.

Important Safety Features – concentrate on these instead of NCAP Safety Rating.

What needs to be done:

Most of the accidents have 2 main causes – 1) High Speed & 2) Drunk Driving. Remove these from the traffic and you will have much safer roads. What is needed is Speed cameras, are a must so a speeding car cannot pay bribe to the police at the scene of crime.

Limiting the speed of the car to 100kmph is a very good option. But many hate this and would prefer to have airbags and drive at 200kmph and expect to survive a crash.

A senior Daihatsu executive told Reuters “Toyota is struggling big time in India” largely because it uses relatively “high-quality, high-spec” components for its cars there and failed to make use of cheaper parts available from local suppliers. In contrast, rivals such as Suzuki have set up comprehensive local supply chains for low-cost parts in India. The essence of the matter is that the world’s biggest car maker has failed in the Indian car market. The story is same not only for Toyota but all other big car manufacturers who mammoth-manufacture cars (“mass-manufacture” is a term that was used 10 yrs ago… the scale is much bigger now) in other developing markets… (read Asian and African markets) having huge potential… and these markets are a cake the big companies cannot have or at least cannot dominate like in their home countries or other developed countries.

Volkswagen – “resources, know-how & right people” if you can read between the lines… UN’s aggressive Global NCAP… sums it all up!!!

Max Mosley, Chairman of Global NCAP, said: “India is now a major global market and production centre for small cars, so it’s worrying to see levels of safety that are 20 years behind the five-star standards now common in Europe and North America”.

The road speed levels of US & Europe are very high in Germany on sections of the Autobahn there are no speed limits… and one can go as fast as their car can. While in India this is just a dream.   The truth is Max Mosley is worried to see increasing competition from Asian car markets and low expected sales in these markets for their expensive cars.

Rules of “Car Safety” are just tricks to level the playing field. The truth is that India and similar Asian countries due to slower road speed has their own safety standards and most of the Indian & Asian cars comply with these standards. Above all the consumer is King and he can decide not to buy a car if he feels that his life is genuinely threatened. What use is seat belt if the driver refuses to wear it.

The Global plan is quite well hidden… but its all there… you just have to shift through the chaff. The General UN Plan has always been the betterment of NATO business across the globe using various means & terms like  global warming, emissions reduction, human rights &  humanitarian assistance and now suddenly Car Safety. These terms are used to put restrictions either via trade or even to put pressure locally.

Last year Oct 2014 when I had written about subtle methods used to cheat people who buy every word the paid automobile website and publishers write kicked up a lot of hue and cry. But in Aug 2015 when an Indian Engineer caught Volkswagen cheating with its pants down is proof that Karma is a Bitch. Volkswagen had planned to destroy the “Make in India” tag… but stand bang in front of a tsunami that could end the Volkswagen story forever. The level at which these guys cheat is beyond the realm of most people’s thought.

As for safety Front & Rear Disc Brakes, Wider Tyres, Bigger wheel Sizes, longer bonnets, below 120kmph speeds should be made mandatory and all these are much more important than Airbags. Usually the NCP game is to introduce one item in a couple of years giving their funding companies the benefit of first mover.

See below the Global Plan of NCAP

The Global NCAP “Global Domination” Plan

Global NCAP has stated very clearly in Activity 5 & 7 that their goal is to discourage the usage of local cars and encourage the use of European Cars all over the Asian Market.

These safety ratings have been established by European car makers to promote the sales of their cars and to come down heavily on locally manufactured cars…….another misery of Globalization. When will the world understand a few countries cannot dictate to other countries how to set their car safety. This is because the road speed, driving culture and traffic behavior differs from country to country. Its time for the FEW to stop dictating to the MANY!

 As for today Nano is safe for travel in India and anywhere. It is the best small Petrol car in the world and all subcompact cars like i10, Alto, WagonR, Santro, Swift, etc are all safe if driven responsibly. Only Swift and Alto can go above 120kmph and and thus can go in the danger zone especially with young people who tend to drive fast. These cars are as safe as traveling on a bike … but just a little more safer… if you drive responsibly these cars are quite good. But if a truck or a bus is going to ram into you then even BMW or SUV cannot save you.

Due to the NCAP ratings the current Tata Nano model cannot be sold in US till 2035 and even then it can only be sold as a “second hand car”. By 2035 NCAP will ensure even 2nd hand cars abide by its safety rating. Possibly the current Nano model might never make it to US or Europe markets. Even E2O the electric car has been told to improve its mileage to sell in Europe… why?

Folks go ahead and buy the car that will suit your budget let not the NCAP stop you.

What Maruti should do?

Maruti should immediately set up their own testing facility. Tests should be undertaken all European Models especially Volvo. Build a track with a concrete wall and run 4 Volvo Golf cars with airbags at it – one at 54kmph, one at 60kmph, one at 100kmph and another at 120kmph. These testings results should be released on the internet. I have no doubt that the results will surprise many Petrol heads.