Unsafe cars are saving lives in India

[Axulus]

The tests come from the London-based Global New Car Assessment Program…The group tested seven cars made for the Indian market and handed five of them—the Renault Kwid, Maruti Suzuki Celerio, Maruti Suzuki Eeco, Mahindra Scorpio, and Hyundai Eon, all with no airbags—a rating of zero out of five stars for adult safety.

...

Let’s take a closer look. These cars are very inexpensive. A Renault Kwid, for example, can be had for under $4000 . In the Indian market these cars are competing against motorcycles. Only 6 percent of Indian households own a car but 47% own a motorcycle. Overall, there are more than five times as many motorcycles as cars in India.

Motorcycles are also much more dangerous than cars.

The [U.S] federal government estimates that per mile traveled in 2013, the number of deaths on motorcycles was over 26 times the number in cars.

The GNCAP worries that some Indian cars don’t have airbags but forgets that no Indian motorcycles have airbags. Even a zero-star car is much safer than a motorcycle. Air bags cost about $200-$400 (somewhat older estimates here a , b , c ) and are not terribly effective. ( Levitt and Porter , for example, calculated that air bags saved 550 lives in 1997 compared to 15,000 lives saved by seatbelts.) At $250, airbags would increase the cost of a $5,000 car by 5%. A higher price for automobiles would reduce the number of relatively safe automobiles and increase the number of relatively dangerous motorcycles and thus an air bag requirement could result in more traffic fatalities.

A broader point is that in India today $250 is about 5% of GDP per capita ( $5,700 at PPP ) and that’s a high price to pay for the limited protection provided by an air bag. Lots of people in the United States wouldn’t pay $2750–5% of US GDP per capita –for an air bag. Why should Indians be any different? ( Mannering and Whinston estimated U.S. willingness to pay was about $500 in the 1990s). As incomes in India rise more people will demand cars and they will demand better and safer cars but forcing people to buy an option before they are willing to pay for it is unlikely to make people better off.

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/05/safety-is-relative.html

 

[laughing dog]

There is absolutely no evidence in the link showing that these unsafe cars are saving Indian lives. It is a hypothesis based on the idea there will be some substitution of unsafe cars for unsafer motorcycles. But even with that substitution, if there are more vehicles on the road (from people who had no vehicle and bought a car), there may be more accidents and more deaths. So, this hypothesis needs empirical confirmation.

 

[Axulus]

There is absolutely no evidence in the link showing that these unsafe cars are saving Indian lives. It is a hypothesis based on the idea there will be some substitution of unsafe cars for unsafer motorcycles. But even with that substitution, if there are more vehicles on the road (from people who had no vehicle and bought a car), there may be more accidents and more deaths. So, this hypothesis needs empirical confirmation.

Perhaps. However, due to the power of the substitution effect (redicing the fatality rate some 90-95% in a car vs motorcycle), there is absolutely no evidence that a law requiring these cars to have air bags will save lives at this point in India's economic development. In fact, it could be the opposite - more deaths.

 

[laughing dog]

Perhaps.

There is no "perhaps" in any direction because there is no data to show a change in Indian mortality rates due to vehicle accidents. Your OP is a hypothesis which has not been tested against any data because there is not any data at this time. These unsafe cars may save lives but there is no data to support the claim they ARE (or will be) saving lives

However, due to the power of the substitution effect (redicing the fatality rate some 90-95% in a car vs motorcycle), there is absolutely no evidence that a law requiring these cars to have air bags will save lives at this point in India's economic development. In fact, it could be the opposite - more deaths.

Shifting the goal posts is not a convincing argument - your OP is about how unsafe cars ARE saving lives.

 

[Ford]

Shifting the goal posts is not a convincing argument - your OP is about how unsafe cars ARE saving lives.

Actually I think the underlying argument in the OP is the typical libertarian tripe. Safety regulations are bad. "Forcing" people to buy safer products is bad. The Mighty Invisible Hand of the Market will eventually make cars safer anyway, and if a few Indians get impaled on their steering wheels in the interim, that's preferable to having safer cars "imposed" upon the hapless Indian people.

 

[Derec]

Actually I think the underlying argument in the OP is the typical libertarian tripe. Safety regulations are bad. "Forcing" people to buy safer products is bad. The Mighty Invisible Hand of the Market will eventually make cars safer anyway, and if a few Indians get impaled on their steering wheels in the interim, that's preferable to having safer cars "imposed" upon the hapless Indian people.

No, the argument does not hinge on that at all. The point is that safety is relative, that there is a law of diminishing returns (seat belts do more than airbags) and that there is always a trade-off between cost and further improvements in safety. Thus a car deemed "unsafe" in Western eyes would be a huge improvement over what most Indians currently have.

By the way, this idea of diminishing returns and trade-off between cost and safety improvements is important when it comes to drafting regulation as well. You could technically mandate that all cars be as safe as Formula 1 cars and all highways as safe as Formula 1 tracks (plenty of runoff areas and Tecpro barriers on the sides) but it would be cost-prohibitive.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

As Ford notes, this is another bullshit Libertarian, "Whatever is good enough to look like improvement" garbage.

Actually I think the underlying argument in the OP is the typical libertarian tripe. Safety regulations are bad. "Forcing" people to buy safer products is bad. The Mighty Invisible Hand of the Market will eventually make cars safer anyway, and if a few Indians get impaled on their steering wheels in the interim, that's preferable to having safer cars "imposed" upon the hapless Indian people.

No, the argument does not hinge on that at all. The point is that safety is relative, that there is a law of diminishing returns (seat belts do more than airbags) and that there is always a trade-off between cost and further improvements in safety. Thus a car deemed "unsafe" in Western eyes would be a huge improvement over what most Indians currently have.

By the way, this idea of diminishing returns and trade-off between cost and safety improvements is important when it comes to drafting regulation as well. You could technically mandate that all cars be as safe as Formula 1 cars and all highways as safe as Formula 1 tracks (plenty of runoff areas and Tecpro barriers on the sides) but it would be cost-prohibitive.

Really? Where I drive, there are guard rails along embankments and crash energy absorbing barriers by all bridge piers. And people on the highway don't go nearly the speed of those on a F1 track. And it isn't about diminishing returns. Road surfaces have to be extremely smooth for F1 cars, otherwise they'd keep bottoming out.

 

[Derec]

As Ford notes, this is another bullshit Libertarian, "Whatever is good enough to look like improvement" garbage.

But it wouldn't just look like improvement, given current conditions in India.

Really? Where I drive, there are guard rails along embankments and crash energy absorbing barriers by all bridge piers.

Did I say there weren't? F1 stuff is pretty much a more hardcore version what is on cars and roadways.

And people on the highway don't go nearly the speed of those on a F1 track.

Kind of my point. The introduction of F1-style safety features would save some lives but not nearly enough to justify the additional cost. There is a trade-off.

And it isn't about diminishing returns.

Of course it is. The new safety features that are becoming more common on cars in the West have relatively low impact on safety because cars are already very safe. The safety features introduced in the 50s and 60s had a much bigger impact because cars back then were not very safe.

Road surfaces have to be extremely smooth for F1 cars, otherwise they'd keep bottoming out.

Of course. They have very low ground clearance because of aerodynamics. You are overthinking it. Other aspects of F1 have no bearing on my safety argument.

 

[Ford]

As Ford notes, this is another bullshit Libertarian, "Whatever is good enough to look like improvement" garbage.

I'll go one further. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the appearance of safety.

It is an argument in favor of selling the cheapest product. Safety doesn't even come into the equation.

The "sell cheap, unsafe cars to the Indian market" argument is predicated on the same principle that led tobacco companies to expand into China and the rest of Southeast Asia when the US cracked down on their products. It is a ruthless business...go where your products are the least regulated, and sell them to people who frankly don't know any better. The people who build these cars (like the people who package smokes) don't give two shits if their product is dangerous.

India is a market where manufacturers can sell cars that wouldn't pass a safety inspection in any Western country and those manufacturers don't give a shit who dies at the wheel of their product.


This isn't about "saving lives." It is about making money at the expense of lives. If anyone tells you that the people selling cars to the Indian people want to save their lives by getting them off motorcycles, they're full of an enormous amount of bullshit.

 

[whichphilosophy]

India according to this report has the highest number of accidents in the world.
Having traveled there a few time, small bumps are very common.
Drunk driving is one factor. In fact in Delhi it is not legal to drink under the age of 25

http://www.dw.com/en/india-has-the-highest-number-of-road-accidents-in-the-world/a-5519345

Road accidents have earned India a dubious distinction. With over 130,000 deaths annually, the country has overtaken China and now has the worst road traffic accident rate worldwide.

This has been revealed by the World Health Organization (WHO) in its first ever Global Status Report on Road Safety. The report pointed to speeding, drunk driving and low use of helmets, seat belts and child restraints in vehicles as the main contributing factors.

The report if correct indicates a number of factors which cause deaths.



If anything the amount of deaths could be even higher

Road safety experts also warn that the real numbers of fatalities could be much higher since many cases are not even reported. There is no estimate as to how many people injured in road accidents die a few hours or days after the accident. And their deaths are then no longer linked to road traffic accidents.