JOURNEY TO SAFETY WEBINAR SERIES-VII

Topic: Improving Vehicle Safety Standards in India

Date: 31st May 2020

Time: 4:00-5:30 PM

Host:

Mr. Girikumar Kumaresh is a Senior Architect in Corporate Research and Advance

Engineering Vehicle Safety and Assistance Systems in Bosch leading Accident
research for India and ASEAN Regions.

Speakers:

Mr. Abhay Mannikar is the Senior Deputy Director and Head Safety and Homologation and Passive
Safety Laboratory at the ARAI. He chairs committees under Automotive Industry Standards and TED
on safety standards.

Mr. Rohit Nair is the head of the Marketing and Business Strategy of BOSCH Chassis System, India.
He represents BOSCH India in all safety-related Technical Committees and Forums.

Introduction:

Vehicle safety is the study and practice of design, construction, equipment, and regulation to
minimize the occurrence and consequences of traffic collisions involving motor vehicles.

Vehicle Safety Standards (VSS) are regulations specifying design, construction, performance, and
durability requirements for motor vehicles and regulated Automobile safety-related components,
systems, and design features. These regulations allow us to fulfill our mission to prevent and reduce
vehicle crashes.

After the last webinar on ‘The Future of Road Safety’, IRSC has arranged this session to make people
aware of the current vehicle safety standards and what improvements are required to standardize it
with the help of experts in the field.

Summary:

Mr. Girikumar leads off the session by exhorting the concept of Vehicle Safety Standards. He then
introduces Mr. Abhay Mannikar to highlight some insights about the plan. Mr. Abhay begins with the
evolution of vehicle safety standards in the last twenty years. He then talks about the road-map of
passive-safety implementation in which he discusses the continuous efforts of ARAI in addressing the
challenges of vehicles and providing the leading solution over the years. Later, he unfolds the
evolution and attributes of the Bharat New Car Assessment Program (NCAP). Mr. Abhay says, “NCAP
is a consumer instrument rather than a mandatory regulation. Standard making will help us for sure
but, we can’t forget that we are also a part of the whole game. We can’t forget that God has made
us with biomechanical limits.”
After the finishing of Mr. Abhay, the host introduces Mr. Rohit Nair, who begins with appreciating
the organization for organizing such platforms for road safety. He then confabulates the formulation
of vehicle safety standards in which he says, “Standards formulation is an ardent task which has
involved dedicated tasks from the Govt., technical and subject matter experts and the automotive
industry collectively.” He then points out the differences between Indian vehicle standards and
Global vehicle standards where Mr. Rohit decodes how Indian consumers have different
expectations and desires from the rest of the world related to price, quality, and safety standards.
Mr. Rohit also speaks about the challenges for a tech-solution provider company in deciding the call
for technology in different regions across the globe. He says, “Different regions have different needs
for technology. Hence, it is a great challenge for companies like BOSCH, etc. to be aware of the
needs for every region and provide the best solution to deal with the same.”

As the session moves to the end, the host (i.e., Mr. Girikumar) and the speakers (i.e., Mr. Abhay
Manikkar and Mr. Rohit Nair) discuss the automobile manufacturers’ efforts in the direction of
providing safety for the people outside vehicles in which he discusses how the manufacturers are
trying hard to provide much safer vehicles to their consumers while answering the doubts and
queries of the audiences as well.

Concluding remarks:

In the end, both speakers appreciate IRSC and Mr. Girikumar for their quality approaches in
spreading awareness for road safety and conclude the session with, “We have to enhance global
technologies, but we have to do local adoptions as well for coming to smart solutions. From our
experience, we can say with surety that the Automobile manufacturers in India have strived to
make cars safer and at par with global technologies.”