Mysore in Navratri

Pics credit - Santoshi

How Safe is Your Car?

 Car Safety- 

Airbags reduce the risk of death by a considerable margin but do not guarantee safety. The reason why I am telling you this is...

The airbags and the car is tested in a crash test where a car is rammed against a concrete wall at a speed of around 65 miles/hour. In India, this crash test is conducted at ARAI (Automotive Research Association of India)

Mind you the concrete wall is at a standstill but in accidents, even the target is moving towards you at an unknown speed. If your car speed is say 50 mph and another car collides straight into you head-on with a speed of 50 mph or let's say that the reaction time of both the drivers was good and they applied brakes and the cars slowed to 35mph and collided. That means at the time of the collision the impact was 70mph which hasn't been tested in the crash test whatsoever and neither could that be tested for all scenarios. A truck at lower speed can be deadlier than this car as the weight of the truck comes into picture.

So here's the catch, airbags are good to save people but no car should be driven at higher speeds. If you remember the Hyderabad biodiversity flyover incident where a speeding Ford hatchback couldn't slow down in a turn and fell off the flyover killing a lady. Here the driver wasn't hurt because the car fell heads on and the free fall doesn't depend on the horizontal speed of the car. The car should have fallen with a speed of 20 mph irrespective of how much speed it had while driving.

What should you check-

Airbags-

If you aren't wearing seat belts air bags in most cases won't deploy. Often people in rear seats do not wear seat belts because the seats are not captain seats and feel uncomfortable while adjustments when 3 are seated so it has become a habit but you should wear seat belts even if you are seated back in the car. Choose a car with front and side airbags. 

Bumper/Metal frame- 

Do not have a frame at the front of your car. That may make look awesome but it is deadly. Usually, the collision sensors are placed under the bonnet of the car. If a collision happens the metal frame would directly transfer the force to passengers first before impacting the bonnet, this happens in milliseconds. So, remove the frame of your fancy car. This was introduced by Britishers to protect their cars when their car headlights used to get damaged due to cattle on Mumbai streets.

ABS with EBD- 

If you have saved money by not buying the model of the car having ABS then it is big mistake. ABS helps you in a great way, it stops the vehicle from skidding. ABS stands for Anti Lock Braking System. This is how it works, when you apply brakes on the wheels in Non ABS car, the brakes hold disc of wheels so tight that the wheels are locked and vehicle slips sidewards. Whereas in ABS, the brakes hold and leave and then hold and leave so on multiple times within microseconds with help of an ECU Electronic Computer Unit so the car doesn't slip. EBD stands for Electronic Brake Force Distribution. All 4 wheels of the car are not the same speed, an engineer knows this. So EBD ensured the distribution of braking force which is crucial.

Weight of the Car- 

Make sure the body of the car is mostly metal so that the momentum of the car maintains good. That means at higher speeds if the car is heavier it is well balanced. The car with maximum weight at the bottom of the car has a lower center of gravity and the risk of toppling is lower. Eg: Tesla cars have heavy battery in the chassis under the floor of the car.

CSC-

If you are taking turns at high speed due to emergency this would help. The cornering Stability Control system helps avoid rolling or skidding.

Child seat anchors-

There is no easy helmet for children carried by their parents on bikes but there is a safe facility for car owners. ISOFIX child seat anchor allows the owner to fix a child seat in the car and thereby enhancing safety for the child occupant.

Ground clearance-

If you are owning a sports car it will have low ground clearance. If the car is driven on a road where you encounter a small ditch in the road can shatter the car into pieces.

Brakes- 

Safety check your car regularly by self and at company-authorized servicing centers.

Thanks for reading, I hope you have liked the content. Do comment with your suggestions or queries.

Bonus point-

I am glad to inform you that during my mechanical engineering undergrad I filed a patent on car safety to IPO Mumbai under the title - 'Drowsiness Alertness Mechanism based on Variable Aerodynamics of the Vehicle'.