6 Airbags To Become Mandatory For All Cars - Nitin Gadkari

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in January had approved a draft notification to make six airbags in vehicles carrying up to eight passengers mandatory.

While the recent announcement in Parliament did not give us a timeline, the draft notification had said that new cars will need to follow the new safety measures if they are manufactured from the 1st of October, 2022 onwards.

India's safety standards for cars haven't been the best in the past. The fitting of a driver's airbag only became mandatory on the 1st of April, 2019. Dual airbags became mandatory only this January. Along with dual airbags, the government also made rear parking sensors and anti-lock brakes standard fitment for all cars.

The announcement by Nitin Gadkari on the floor of the Lok Sabha will ensure that a lot more lives will be saved in case an unfortunate accident occurs on our roads. The addition of the 4 airbags especially those curtain airbags will ensure that cars will be a lot safer in case of a side-on crash. The presence of side curtain airbags will also help keep occupants safer in case of a rollover.

The new norms will also ensure that all variants of every car sold in the country will have a minimum of six airbags as standard instead of the current setup which sees only the top-spec versions fitted with the entire set of available safety features.

Currently, the only vehicles that seem to offer the whole array of airbags in all variants are luxury cars from European carmakers like Mercedes, Audi and BMW. However, with the implementation of the new rules, all new cars running on Indian roads will have a minimum of 6 airbags as standard, which in turn would mean an increase in price.

There are reports around that suggest that adding the full array of six airbags which include side curtain airbags could increase the prices of cars by at least Rs 50,000.

While this may seem to be too steep an increase in prices, the safety upgrade will make it worth the extra cash in the long term. We agree with the Government's sentiment of wanting to ensure that the people are safer even if it means that they'll have to spend a bit more to ensure that because, in the end, a life saved is way more important than spending more money.

Thoughts On The Government's Plans To Make 6 Airbags Mandatory for All Cars

Minister Gadkari has been a champion of upping safety measures for Indian road users. His latest plans which were first unveiled in January and now confirmed in Parliament will ensure that more lives will be saved on Indian roads in case of a crash or a rollover. To ensure this, any extra amount of money spent on buying a new car is money well spent.