ABS to become compulsory in commercial vehicles from April 2015

To increase the road safety standards in country, the Indian Government has made the Anti-lock Braking System (ABS) compulsory on all new models of commercial vehicles starting April next year. ABS is a safety feature which allows wheels to maintain the tractive control with road surface. It helps in controlling the vehicle during emergency braking at high speed by unlocking the wheels which further prevents it from skidding.

India tops the list of deadly road accidents globally. As per the industry data, one person dies from the road accident in every 4 minutes and about 77 per cent of the accidents are caused by collisions, loss of control or lane departure. In the year 2012, Indian roads witnessed more than 5 lakh accidents which took the life of 1.42 lakh people. The commercial segment which includes trucks, buses and multi-axle tractor-trailer caused three out of ten reported accidents. Thus its quite important to increase the safety of vehicles to prevent such dreadful incidents.

However, manufacturers will get extra time (six months) to install the ABS in the upcoming vehicles by next fiscal. While to a surprise, ABS is not made compulsory in passengers vehicles but recently manufacturers have started adopting ABS as an optional or standard feature in their newly launched vehicles which surely enhances the safety.

A senior government official said. "It (government order) would be covering the new models first as it is easier to fit this critical system on the new vehicles." He further said,"It's also an attempt to make roads and highways safer."

After making seat belts compulsory in vehicles in late 1990s, ABS is the second major safety feature included as the mandatory safety equipment. In European and American auto-sectors, ABS comes as the standard safety feature while in India it is only offered as  an option in some of the top-end variants of trucks and buses.

Depending upon the model and type of the vehicle, ABS could cost between be Rs 50,000-Rs 75,000. A senior R&D engineer working with a top commercial vehicle maker, on the condition of keeping his identity anonymous said, “Customers may end up paying Rs 1 lakh extra on new vehicles with this safety package," said

While in order to further enhance the safety features, the ministry of road transport and highways are also looking for other protective equipments such as traction control, dual side airbags and head-on display which provides all the important notifications on the windscreen thus ensuring that the driver does not have to take his eyes off the road while looking for infos.

Source: Economic Times