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Audi accused of spreading driver 'disease' with longer lasting horns
WHAT began as a plan to attract India's horn-pumping motorists with some of the best and loudest car horns on the market has descended, instead, into yet another outlet for sub-continental road rage.
Audi has equipped its cars with extra loud horns to tempt buyers in one of its fastest growing markets. According to Michael Perschke, the director of Audi India: "You take a European horn and it will be gone in a week or two. With the amount of honking in Mumbai, we do on a daily basis what an average German does on an annual basis."
The horns were being specially reinforced for driving conditions in India, Mr Perschke told India's Mint newspaper. "The horn is tested differently - with two continuous weeks of honking. The setting of the horn is different, with different suppliers."
But Audi's decision has provoked fury from anti-honking activists. "It's absolutely wrong for manufacturers to do this," Rohit Baluja, president of the Institute of Road Traffic Education in Delhi, said.
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"Honking in India is a disease that needs to be controlled, not encouraged," said Harman Singh Sidhu, the president of Arrive Safe, a road safety campaign group.
"Honking is a big menace. It is causing mental torture and is a major cause of road rage."
He pointed out that India had the worst record on road safety in the world - 133,938 people died on its roads in 2010, or about 366 people every day, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.
"The true figure is higher because many road crashes go unreported," Mr Sidhu said.
Moreover, India's road traffic accident rate has soared as more novice drivers buy cars for the first time and share pot-holed, poorly signed roads with bullock carts, cows, rickshaws and bicycles.
Domestic passenger car sales in India, a country of 1.2 billion people, rose 13 per cent last month to 211,402, the highest monthly total on record, from 186,890 during the same period in 2011.
Foreign car-makers such as Audi are targeting India, where the economy is growing at more than 6 per cent per year, to compensate for sluggish growth elsewhere. The German group sold more than 5000 vehicles on the sub-continent last year, which represented rise of about 80 per cent on the year before.
Audi has not stopped with its car horns: Mr Perschke said that, since so many Audi owners in India had personal drivers, car interiors had been reconfigured so that "you can be more in command from the rear seat".
WHAT began as a plan to attract India's horn-pumping motorists with some of the best and loudest car horns on the market has descended, instead, into yet another outlet for sub-continental road rage.
Audi has equipped its cars with extra loud horns to tempt buyers in one of its fastest growing markets. According to Michael Perschke, the director of Audi India: "You take a European horn and it will be gone in a week or two. With the amount of honking in Mumbai, we do on a daily basis what an average German does on an annual basis."
The horns were being specially reinforced for driving conditions in India, Mr Perschke told India's Mint newspaper. "The horn is tested differently - with two continuous weeks of honking. The setting of the horn is different, with different suppliers."
But Audi's decision has provoked fury from anti-honking activists. "It's absolutely wrong for manufacturers to do this," Rohit Baluja, president of the Institute of Road Traffic Education in Delhi, said.
Top 50 Tech Rec Coverage
"Honking in India is a disease that needs to be controlled, not encouraged," said Harman Singh Sidhu, the president of Arrive Safe, a road safety campaign group.
"Honking is a big menace. It is causing mental torture and is a major cause of road rage."
He pointed out that India had the worst record on road safety in the world - 133,938 people died on its roads in 2010, or about 366 people every day, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.
"The true figure is higher because many road crashes go unreported," Mr Sidhu said.
Moreover, India's road traffic accident rate has soared as more novice drivers buy cars for the first time and share pot-holed, poorly signed roads with bullock carts, cows, rickshaws and bicycles.
Domestic passenger car sales in India, a country of 1.2 billion people, rose 13 per cent last month to 211,402, the highest monthly total on record, from 186,890 during the same period in 2011.
Foreign car-makers such as Audi are targeting India, where the economy is growing at more than 6 per cent per year, to compensate for sluggish growth elsewhere. The German group sold more than 5000 vehicles on the sub-continent last year, which represented rise of about 80 per cent on the year before.
Audi has not stopped with its car horns: Mr Perschke said that, since so many Audi owners in India had personal drivers, car interiors had been reconfigured so that "you can be more in command from the rear seat".
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