This Callous Attitude Must Change
THE FIRST WEEK OF FEBRUARY WAS DEDICATED TO ROAD SAFETY. Most car manufacturers launched road safety initiatives in one form or another. The biggest issue for us is that we Indians have become a very selfish society. We do not care for other people’s lives, far less their well-being. ‘How do I get to my destination first? I don’t care what happens to the person next to me’. This sums up the attitude of most people. You may introduce all manner of rules and regulations but the ground reality will not change until and unless we change our attitude. Of course, this does not mean that the police should not come down heavily on offenders and traffic violators. Anybody driving down the wrong way should be nabbed and put in the cooler for one day. Another suggestion is to put one-way spikes so that anybody going the wrong way gets punctured tyres.
The annual Car India Award ceremony was held last month. Of the 22 contenders only seven were mass-market cars, the rest being all premium, high-end ones. How times have changed! If you go back, say, 15 years, we had only one premium car manufacturer and that was Mercedes-Benz. Now all the top car manufacturers in the world are present in this country.
Most of our honourable jury members have been with us since the first Car India Awards in 2006. They were amazed at the progress and improvement in the entry-level cars. The entry-level Hyundai Santro walked away with the coveted Automobile of the Year Award. The little Santro has set a new benchmark in fit-and-finish, the quality of plastic, and ride quality, which is just amazing. Even if you happen to hit a big pothole, there is no rattle or metallic sound from the suspension. The AMT gearbox developed in-house by Hyundai feels more like an auto box than an AMT. The Santro truly deserves the crown won by it.
EDITOR – ASPI BHATHENA
