The tragic accident on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad highway on Sunday that killed former Tata Sons chairperson Cyrus Mistry has put the spotlight on the importance of road safety measures like wearing a seatbelt and driving safely within the speed limit.
The accident has prompted conversations about the importance of seat belts in the backseat as well, a practice not followed in India. This was because the two people — Cyrus Mistry and Jehangir Pandole — who died in the accident were sitting at the back. While Mistry was declared dead on arrival at the hospital, Jehangir is said to have died on the way.
Mistry was accompanied by Mumbai-based gynaecologist Anahita Pandole, who was driving the car. Her husband, and CEO of JM Financial Private Equity, Darius Pandole, was in the passenger seat beside her. Darius's brother, Jehangir, the director of the KPMG Global Strategy Group, was at the back with Mistry.
Anahita and Darius were both wearing seatbelts and are recuperating in the hospital. The car had a head-on collision, and it was the front portion that sustained most damage, but it was the people at the back who succumbed to their injuries. Here's a look at why wearing a seatbelt at the back of a car is important.
What are the seatbelt rules in India?
While the majority of cars come with seatbelts for backseats as well, wearing them isn't a normalised practice in India. However, if one goes by the Central Motor Vehicle Rules (CMVR), it is supposed to be mandatory. Rule 138 (3) of CMVR states that people "seated in the front seat or the persons occupying front-facing rear seats" need to wear seat belts in a moving vehicle. The violation of this rule makes a person liable for a fine of Rs 1,000.
"By law in India, cars need to have an alarm system for not wearing a seatbelt in front seats. But no such system is in place for backseat occupants," says Siddharth Vinayak Patankar, Editor-in-Chief, carandbike, adding that having an alarm system for wearing seatbelts in the rear seat can increase the rate of compliance with the rule.
There is no universal rule for wearing a seatbelt in the rear seat. Most countries do not impose the law, while other countries make wearing seatbelts compulsory on highways.
"In India, not even 5% of people wear seatbelts in the backseat," RC Bhargav, chairman of Maruti Suzuki India said in an interview with Business Today.
Many also find wearing seatbelts in the backseat "uncomfortable" because of which they don't wear them. "An awareness needs to be brought as to how and why wearing seatbelts for all passengers in a vehicle is needed," he adds.
Patankar said that cars are categorised on the basis of seating space—such as five-seater or three-seater. There is a standard seat size that these vehicles need to have."It is not about comfort level, it is more about getting used to it," he said.
According to a 2017 study by the World Health Organisation, in India, 3.5 to 11% of people in the front seat wore seatbelts, while 14-40% of the drivers followed the seatbelt rule. However, it did not provide any data for seatbelt-wearing rates for passengers in the backseat.
The WHO says that wearing a seatbelt properly can reduce the risk of fatal injury by up to 75%.
Do Airbags Work Without Seatbelts?
Mistry and the Pandoles were travelling in a Mercedes Benz car, one of the best cars in terms of safety systems installed. The visuals of the accident showed the front portion of the car completely mangled, while the sides looked unscratched. Despite the damage to the anterior part, those sitting in front survived, while those in the back did not.
The visuals of the car showed the inside of the car almost fine, apart from the fact that the front seats were pushed forward. "That was probably because the backseat passengers crashed into it because they weren't wearing seatbelts," Patankar said. "Airbags won't help if you are not wearing a seatbelt."
Often the restraint of the seatbelt and the airbag work together as a buffer to save the human body in the situation of a very high-speed collision.
"He was in the safest of cars with six or more airbags. People in the front survived, people in the back did not because the people in the front had their seatbelts on," Bhargav told Business Today. He said such facts point to the that the most important thing for safety is for people even in the backseat to wear seatbelts.
For cars fitted with airbags, the safety equipment gets activated in case of a crash. But some cars have a sensor that tells the system not to deploy the airbag if the seatbelt is not worn. "But this is only for the front airbags, therefore only for the front seat passengers," Patankar said. The sensor system is not in place for side/curtain, knee, or head airbags, he added.
"If people are not wearing seatbelts, being in the safest of cars with the best of airbags won't," he said.
Reports after Mistry's tragic accident said that the place where the accident took place was a "black spot" on the highway. ANI quoted Palghar SP Balasaheb Patil as saying that there were multiple such blind spots along the Mumbai-Ahmedabad highway. "Efforts are also being made by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) to eliminate these blind spots," he said. A Mid-Day report found out from local police that there is a 52-kilometer stretch between Manor in Palghar district of Maharashtra and Achad in Gujarat where there are several such blackspots. The highway also lacks proper signage and street lights, the report said.
Patankar also emphasised the need of having a three-point seatbelt to take into account the safety of the passenger sitting in the middle of the rear seat. Not many cars in India are designed to have seatbelts for the middle seat.
"Even if you have a high-end car, a vehicle can do only so much. People also need to follow the rules for the safety equipment to work effectively," he said.