ABS will be mandatory in India in 125cc and above two-wheelers from 2017

Anti-lock Braking System (ABS) will be mandatory in India by 2017 in the two wheelers displacing 125cc and above. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has approved the proposal of Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) to install this important safety feature into a wide range of vehicles.

Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) director, Rashmi Urdhwareshe said,"“We’ll implement new safety norms in a phased manner. These would be made available for all vehicles including trucks, buses, two-wheelers and even three-wheelers. For two-wheelers, safety feature like ABS will become mandatory. We will be coming out with a notification." “Three-wheelers, which haven’t had any safety components, will get the new standards soon,” she added further.

As the mandate will be effective from 2017, two-wheeler manufacturer have an ample time slot to prepare their vehicles according to the future Indian safety norms. Currently, a few motorcycles in the Indian market comes with the standard ABS, while a few have it as an optional feature. Using this feature in every two-wheeler will help reduce number of accidents caused by wheel slipping.

The ABS feature prevents sudden wheel locking while using the brakes, specially in the emergency situations and cornering. When the wheel locks up suddenly, they looses their traction and the vehicle could skid drastically, causing an accident. The feature controls the braking power supplied to the brake unit by sensing the vehicle speed and force applied by the rider. The feature can not be used with the mechanical brakes and it can be more advanced with more sensors and actuators, depending on the cost of the equipment.

Not only the ABS will increase the prices of two-wheelers, but the replacement of mechanical (Drum) braking unit with Hydraulic (Disc) type will further add extra bucks to the cost.