Hindustan Times
Supercars or super killers?
The roads remain narrow, the traffic diverse and chaotic and empty stretches rare, and yet the craze for supercars shows no signs of letting off.
The Lamborghini crash on Bus Rapid Transit near Chirag Delhi was no exception. Supercar crashes are becoming a norm now, commensurate to their ever increasing presence on the roads. Only in October last year, a Rs 1.5 crore Porsche also met with the same fate. That time it was at the India Gate roundabout and thankfully offered no casualties (besides the car) as the seat belt did its job well.
There are quite a few things common between the two accidents but the biggest similarity was that the vehicles were being driven at a very high speed resulting in the cars getting out of control. The Lambo was speeding along at an unbelieveable 200 kmph, the Porsche at an equally eye popping 180 kmph.
In both these cases thankfully, it was only the drivers who largely bore the brunt. But pedestrians and fellow drivers are not always as fortunate. With over 1.25 lakh people dying on the roads every year, India by far, leads the list of countries with the highest number of deaths due to road accidents. There is no statistic to suggest how many of these are courtesy these super machines but there is reason to believe the numbers are rising.
Which should make us wonder, whether India is ready for such cars?
The main problem here is not the price though there is a school of thought that opposes Rs 1 crore plus cars for the sheer ostentatious display of wealth. Also it seemingly mocks the population at large that can hardly afford a Maruti Alto, leave aside a Ferrari. The issue really is with the cars themselves.
A Ferrari, Bugatti, Maserati, Lamborghini or Bentley are such engineering marvels, that for a relatively under developed market like India and for its even more malnourished drivers, they pose a problem. Case in point, is the fact that P C Jewellers, the original owners of the ill fated Lambo, themselves wanted to get rid of the car as they found it nearly uncontrollable on Indian roads.
Their top speed of over 300 kmph is what comes to mind when we say something as being difficult to control. But it is actually not as simple. Some manufacturers like BMW, Mercedes and Toyota voluntarily cap the speed of their vehicles to 250kmph recognising the fact that their owners may not be as evolved as the vehicles irrespective of the fact that they have the money to buy them. But that does not guarantee a safe drive.
A BMW, Mercedes, Audi or even a Toyota and Volkswagen are as susceptible to high speed crashes. With or without speed governors. The death of a certain queen of an erstwhile superpower 10 years ago is a fitting example of that.
The main issue is the way these cars handle on the road and the steep acceleration curve that they possess. The Gallardo for example, can get to 100 kph from standstill in a mere 3.4 seconds. If you keep the pedal pressed for another 7 seconds, you would hit the kind of speed that Rishi managed on Monday morning (200kph). To put things in perspective, a Honda City which itself is not a slow car, would need another 2 seconds to reach half that speed.
Conservative drivers that we are, with limited exposure to such superlative machines, we are not trained to handle this kind of steep acceleration. It is this that needs to be kept in check, but then that is also the beauty of these cars.
There is another problem that these vehicles face in India–the dreaded low ground clearance. The Gallardo has an unenviable ground clearance of a little over 100mm. While that is necessary for a car that can do 300 kmph plus, on Indian roads it is quite a liability. With potholes that resemble the craters on moon and speed breakers more akin to vehicle breakers, only the most unfortunate of these cars from the assembly lines get to be driven in India.
And when that is combined with an equally unfortunate driver, tragedy is only a logical conclusion. Since there is no assurance of how soon the human mind will turn rational and seek practicality over bragging rights, perhaps it is better to not give them the option to exercise irrationality at all.
And no, I am not mourning for Rishi. I am only mourning for the car, now awaiting burial in a nondescript Delhi Police dumping yard in Greater Kailash.
(16 votes, average: 4.19 out of 5)
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I totally agree. Shit it, sell it. But, don’t put a paisa into it. The people who work there all deserve to loose their jobs.
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Anonymous Reply:
January 27th, 2012 at 3:48 am
mr ANAND IS A NO BALANCE MAN
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Anonymous Reply:
January 27th, 2012 at 3:53 am
mr anand make sure that u r not in a commercial publicity war against a company
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I never fly Air India – had a really bad experience once. The crew thinks they are doing their customers a favor by ‘helping’ them. But wait, isn’t that behavior true with the staff of nationalized banks too! Moral of the story: Privatize them and then let the customers vote with their wallets. If they serve their customers well, they will swim or let them sink.
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AIR INDIA SOLUTION – SPLIT IT, SPLIT IT, SPLIT IT AND THEN PRIVATISE IT, PRIVATISE IT, PRIVATISE IT FOLLOWED BY CUT SHORT HEAD COUNT, CUT SHORT HEAD COUNT, CUT SHORT HEAD COUNT!
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Last year, the people of this country came out very strongly in support of Anna Hazare’s movement against corruption. Is the waste of public resources in propping up a terminally sick Air India also not a form of corruption ?
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Government had decided to sell this airline long time ago. Mr. Praful Patel was
made an aviation minister for this reason only. His job was to bring Air India at
such a horrible level that whole media and public start speaking against this
airline so that government can claim that they had no choice but to sell this
loss making airline. We will see in near future that this will be sold for peanuts
to a private company and our ‘honest’ ministers will pocket huge money which
they will get under the table. This government is run by crooks and criminals.
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I know your pain only too well.
Air India, Indian Airlines or whatever government run flying monstrosity they’d like to call it, I have completely sworn off them. I advise and tell everybody who I know and those who are unaware as to never ever travel with in that dirty flying cattle cart called Air India.
The current bankruptcy is but the latest and most visible sign in the deep malaise and rot that has made a nest in the heart of what is actually an employment agency for unemployable cabin crew and pilots. The idea in Air India seems to be that the customer is a piece of trash that they carry from one cesspool to another – in effect they operate a trash truck and in doing so are doing everybody in the nation a favor.
The entire airline needs to shut down, cut up and sold off in scraps and pieces to private companies or other foreign airlines who will run like a real company -where things like customer satisfaction and safety are important. And where they don’t hire Eastern European cab drivers to fly planes into the ground.
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Hey man, don’t hog all the ganja!
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Our PM and President fly on AIR FORCE flights not Air India (god forbid! ). Second, if not for Air India, any other airline would do it the government paid for them to do it. Do you think Jet Airways wouldn’t do it ? Plus, that job was the responsibility of the Indian air force not Air India. AIr India was used because our government was too pathetic.
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I dont understand why all of us are so narrow minded. If you feel something is not proper then u should have the guts to change it instead of crying over it. Whoever has posted this aricle is very immature. Air India is a fantastic airline and it is the airline of my choice. Just because it is a govt airline, all of you are just bragging about it.
Have you checked out AI’s US routes…??? It is a superhit and AI has won numerous awards on those sectors too. If you dont wont to travel by AI then shut up and find some other airline, speculation hurts the brand image.
The current problem what AI is facing is because of the UPA govt. Their services are just excellent. Its not justifiable to take up the issue of what happened long long ago and judge the airline on it. Think practical guys…!! wake up..!!
Its easy to sit and brag about anything without knowing what it is..!
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Riya Smith Reply:
January 25th, 2012 at 6:36 pm
Hey i did checkout the US routes.. it still sucks. Flight attendants think themselves like headmistress of school. they have no courtsey, no manners whatsoever to talk and behave.
AI has just become one of the ways the govt eats tax payer’s money..
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My Sincere Advice to Mr. Rajesh is if he had taken a oath not to travel by AI again….. Why the hell he opted to Fly AI…. Its as simple as ” No I cant Eat Shit but given nothing is available to eat i will Eat tht too…. irrespective of who’s it is n i will crib later”
Hmmmm….keep it simple Mr.Rajesh dont crib when the fault is on You….
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Mr.Prasanna Kumar,
Please Learn first to type numbers on a letter pad when you are typing an article in reply, If u cant even type properly a Number then what right you have to ill comment about an Airline which is as old as a 60 years and which has about 30,000 employees and 10 billion people to serve to…
Please write something which is apt and with proper statistics and Logic.
think even you wont have time to read this reply….
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Mr.Hari Sadooooooo,
why are you wasting your energy by posting here when you have to be chilling out in DXB weather….. By the way dont take me wrong when i ask you why u Praise Oman Air when u are at DXB….Think you are out of your mind dude….
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Mr.Khan,
By the way my friend the so called South Eastern Airlines Doesnt exist any more in USA…..its long since they have shut shop my friend….which world are u in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Oh….the Sherlock Holmes has arrived atlast…..
Dear which world are you in the poor staff of AI as reported by all the leading dailies have not got paid for more than 5 to 6 months n you talk about Holiday…
pathetic dude….u are simply pathetic….
Whu dont u blame Sonia/Praful/Pawar i would have liked your comment instead….
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Beautiful English Gupta Ji….I love you for your comments made in Very Perfect English…….
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Ohhhh……Now I get my friend….why Mr.Mallaya’s Airline is About to shut shop….
U ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT…..Mr.RIGHT…
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I vowed this last year, when while flying from delhi to chicago . I missed the tea in their first round as i had my son sleeping in my lap. when after 10 mins i asked for it, she said “dekhte hain” .. looks like attendants think the flight is their dad’s plane..they suck air india suck.
but politicans are too corrupt to let air india go.. they’ll keep eating taxpayer’s money via this ..
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Actually what you are talking about is something that was done long ago and is not done any longer. The sign on the plane may be “Air India” but the aircraft is not staffed by Air India crews or pilots. The aircraft is under the Indian Airforce and the Indian airforce pilots fly the aircraft. These aircraft are part of the Indian Air Force 1st Technical Aviation Squadron (or something like that) stationed in Hindon Air Base. Recently new aircraft were procured for the PM and President from Boeing with self-protection suites and other communications gear ala Air Force One. The Indian PM’s aircraft is known as Air Indian One but it is run by the Indian AirForce. As to Jet, they would be “proud” to fly the Indian PM! Also, do you think Air India gives its aircraft for “free” for VIP use ? The Government pays for it, so why not pay JET or any other airline ??
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All the airlines you’ve mentioned have Indians in their cabin crew, so its nothing to do with Indian cabin crew or Air India. Air India cultivates that atmosphere of “anything goes” and “we are like this only!”. Just take a look at Jet when they fly internationally, their crew is impeccably professional and the passengers are very courteous as well.
It’s upto the airline to inculcate behavior and set standards for both the cabin crew and the passengers. Back in the 80s, Air India was indeed very good to fly in, with great service and the like but as the seats started becoming cheaper the cabin crew became short staffed and of lower quality.
The main problem with Air India is that the crews themselves don’t have any respect or confidence in their own company, passengers can see this and the crew’s apathy is reciprocated by the passengers. True that Indian passengers are increasingly boorish as well but even foreign passengers find Air India abrasive and a terrible experience.
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Dear All,
Sub: Eligibility for Padma Awards
1. A public limited company Chairman accused of misappropriation of “borrowed public money” from Public Sector Banks and is facing several criminal cases of cheating, fraud, willful omission and concealment of information with an intent to misappropriate Bank Loans. Accused of misappropriation.
2. Allegedly accused for the offenses punishable in respect of the offenses under IPC 403, 405, 406, 415, 417, 420, 421, 422, 423, 424 and 34.
3. CIBIL – suits filed in excess of 100 Crores by Public Sector Banks on the company – of which he was the Chairman.
4. His appeals in respect of all criminal cases having been rejected at both High Court and Supreme court level.
During the pendency of such serious criminal cases – is that person worthy of receiving the highest civilian honor of the country – Padma Shri Award.
If yes – give reasons
If no – give reasons
Please reply.
Thanks
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