This Week's Driving - July 4th, 2000 - Log 26

Three subjects which have been all over the headlines lately, which were first covered by us long ago.

First, the good news. Component exports from India seem to be looking up, independent of manufacturers in India and their kit import cultures. These are the true benefits to a nation of an automobile industry, unsung and usually without strong lobbies. Leading from ahead is their organisation, ACMA, which we have the good fortune of knowing well. If ever there was proof required that it is the small and medium sector that will pull India up by the bootstraps and lead them into the front of the world, this is the organisation that gives proof. Just like the software industry, it is the unsung warriors who rule here, too.

On one side you have companies like MUL who have been unable to indigenise as yet the gearboxes and the glues used in their cars and on the other hand we have component exporters who are able to export high-end sub-assemblies to more demanding customers abroad. You have companies like Honda SieL and HM Mitsubishi still literaly assembling cars from components sourced out of the Far East and on the other hand we have ACMA which has to struggle to get duty reliefs on raw materials. On one side you have manufacturers trying to squiggle out of MOUs on exports worth millions of dollars, while on the other side you have component manufacturers still trying to move out of cases filed against them for small amounts of foreign exchange.

So much for justice!

Next, this business of fuel adulteration. One of our Public Sector Oil companies, Bharat Petroleum, actually threatened to sue the undersigned for daring to point out the menace of fake fuel from their outlets. Next thing, goons are hired to visit the editor's residence; luckily your editor knows some goons, too, so that is quickly settled. A few days later, the newspapers are full of stories about CBI raids on public sector oil companies involved in fraudulent movement of petroleum products.The main questions remain unanswered though:- where is all the naphtha going? It comes into India only through one route, officially. It then disappears with official connivance to surface, nicely mixed in our petrol.

Sarkari loot?

And finally, the great hop-skip-jump and stumble-fumble from the latest circus in town, the car industry led by head clown, Maruti Udyog Ltd! First they launch an ad campaign extolling the virtues of the low-slung Zen and then a short while later they launch the tallest small car, the Wagon-R! Then they dump cars on dealers anticipating a sales tax hike and after that, when sales don't pick up, knock prices down. Car pricing has long been done on whim and fancy, but this is the limit. Increase and decrease based on sales and not on product? Expectedly, most of the competition is quietly offering discounts. But that is not the point. the point is: are we getting value for money?

Ethics abroad are different from ethics in India, for these foreign car manufacturers, it would seem . . .

And time for salutes from cybersteering. The eGroup on TELCO automobiles was started almost a year or more ago by Dr. Subrat Kar of IIT-Delhi with support from many others inluding Dr. ratan Saini, Systems Engineer from Agra. Initially ignored and almost villified by the manufacturer, it seems somebody at TELCO finally had the good sense to realise that this was a good thing!

Recognition in the form of an official link from TELCO's own site is the latest acclaim. An article from the horse's mouth follows, interim, if you want to know more aboiut the TELCO (Indica and other cars) egroup, write in to us.

Bumbling rumbling, whining and dining. SIAM and CII, two worthies, lobbyists who can't seem to see straight on their own turf. Should they permit import of 2nd hand vehicles or should they fight it tooth and nail? Would they be pro-diesel, anti-diesel or should people be forced to drink it?

The latest is the interesting theory, propped up by one of our leading manufacturers no less, that the bi-annual "Auto Expo", for some time propped up as a CII show, be scraped. Or scrapped. Same thing. Reason being . . . last time around, Honda and HM mitsubishi didn't take part, and it didn't hurt them one bit. Mitsubishi, in fact, went on to become the number one prestige brand.

So, next Auto Expo, year 2002, likely to be slightly wet? Considering the mess they made of the one in 2000, they deserve it too!

Road safety, does it impact only the person inside the cabins? Or is it just something to soothe palates of the baba log and baby log set, cocooned inside their air-conditioned sedans?

Suggestions given years ago to the MOST to help make roads in India compatible places for heavy vehicles as wel as pedestrians, and all those in between especially two-wheeler riders . . . how do you expect people who ride around in curtained white Ambassador cars to know or understand?

OK, so we get around that and make them understand, what next? Next is that it costs the manufacturers so they continue to flog their chassis plus cowl kind of open assed arrangements, leaving the building of safer bodies and vehicles to illiterate street-side vendors.

A letter received some days ago says it all . . .

"" . . .Cost has never been a factor for a bus operator! In 1973 a bus cost 93000 thousands. Now it costs 9.3 lakhs. Yet the operators' buy new vehicles and operate those vehicles. The defect lies else where.

To mention a few months back I queried your bike guru to find out why Burn Guards are not fitted in motor cycles? Pat came the reply that the manufacturers are afraid of additional cost involved. But I wrote to all the two wheeler manufacturers with a reply I got from an American Auto site.

Now I find one manufacturer has come up with a new vehicle and one line in the advertisement is "Burn the roads - not her legs.!"

At last now burn guard has come in two wheelers. If there is demand from persons with a concern for the lives of motor vehicle users, sure there will be improved systems.

To quote another example, we have been agitating with Ashok Leyland that their Fuel Injection Pumps (Indiginised ones by MICO) did not match the performance standard of imported KiKi make FIPs. and they should import and fit it in their vehicles.

Now AL has imported 2000 pumps and have fitted it in the new AL vehicles and they are performing superbly.

Who has demanded so far that the front end structure of a commercial vehicle truck or bus should be built in such a way even if it crashes it does not kill either the inmates or the third party vehicle occupants but should withstand the crash? Has any of the high profile technical geniuses managing some lakhs of public transporrt vehicles through public sector undertakings ever made a demand on the manufacturers for such a type of vehicle or have designed such a body structure of their own?

On the contrary the private operators I am sure are making a lot of hue and cry with the body builders to change their structural designs in such a way that the buses are crashworthy.

I know a proposal with the Ministry of Surface Transport for amending the rules regarding body building on buses and trucks with such safety standards incorporated in . . . it is in the "Process(!) and Consideration(!!) stage for the past many years.

And another angle to this issue. An accident victim is compensated though belatedly and disproportionately by one of the Insurance Companies in India. But you would be surprised to know that these Insurance Companies do not spend any money on accident prevention and thereby save their outgo. Can they set up driver training schools and produce good drivers? Can't they have a compilation of accident data and find out accident prone areas and if necessary rectify the accidentproneness by spending from their funds? They don't have any such thought at all.

When I made a query on this with a High official of the National HighWay Authority he said, "Oh this is a good source for funding the road projects! Sure we will tap it." But I find even today not a single pie from the insurance company is spent on prevent of accidents and saving human lives.

I think there has to be a concerted pressure on the Government to set up good and sufficient driver training schools, collect accident data, analyse them, find out causes of accidents, and with the help of insurance companies, rectify them and save many a lives in India.

Rajasekaran R tnbusfed@eth.net

(Editor's note: data on road accident deaths is not available in India. However, a random survey done will show that in no district of the country can we say that even one day goes past without a death on the roads. Multiply by 600 and then multiply by 365 . . . and add to that the numbers lying maimed, mentally scarred . . . the official guesstimate floated by the sarkar is 70000 to 5 lakhs dead every year.)

cybersteering wishes to announce the resumption of "world's first stupid motoring ad contest". This time we choose the asinine ad from Daewoo for the otherwise perfectly OK Matiz . . . i mean, why would I buy a car if I seduced a woman in it? I would put a down payment for a flat with a double bed instead . . .

auto-portal of the year, month, ding-dong, ping-pong . . . why are we not getting any awards? Simple, we refuse to pay the "entry fee" that goes with "winning" such awards. Very vigorously ve vere voraciously voted victors vith vague value by a teevee channel vith a very alphabetical name . . . but we were asked to "donate" a figure of a few lakhs first! Kyaa karein . . . v are like that vonly!!

from Larry, Joe and Curly Moe, the editor wishes Paddy all the best in getting his girlfriend back. Shailesh & Veeresh, at cybersteering. And no, we weren't even called for the various junkets this year . . . so watch out all you car manufacturers .. .. .. at least you can call us so that we can say no, no? CBI ko bata denge, match fixing in cricket is nothing compared to car report fixing here!!! Passport copies dekhoge Bijoy Kumar kee?? Y not!!!

Drivers Log
Veeresh Malik
The Edit Team
bluepencil@cybersteering.com

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