Hyundai cars as coffins - in a rain, a Santro can kill you!

Hello,I am back after a short visit to the UK, and as you can imagine, with a lot of new perspectives on why Chennai has among the worst roads anywhere.

Of course, the 'top' issue being discussed about Chennai's roads is the death of three people in a Hyundai Santro car during the intense rain that hit the city on Saturday (October 28) night.

It did not help any of the lakhs of motorists (or pedestrians) on that dark and rainy night that the police in chennai had 100 new cars donated by the same company whose Santro turned into a coffin for three people.

So why do people in Santro cars caught in heavy rain end up suffocating to death? Read the Times of India's report on the incident in Chennai here.

A search on the Internet reveals that the Chennai incident was not the first. It happened almost in identical fashion -- in a Santro -- in Mumbai in 2005.

Today's The Hindu has a report on how this sort of thing apparently happens. But the report does not deal with the impact of the jamming of the central locking on those who were trapped. What role did this play in causing the deaths?

This question is important because Hyundai has a duty to explain to its tens of thousands of customers, what it did after the Mumbai deaths, to determine the cause of the technical problem. Did Hyundai fix the problem in subsequent production of Santro? Why has it not ordered a recall of all Santros fitted with similar locks to assess whether they need to be changed or repaired?

Okay, even if this is too much to ask in a third world country with a significant number of corrupt politicians, bureaucrats and policemen, why has not Hyundai advertised an emergency number for its car owners, which will provide help if they are stranded?

And what is the Government in this Detroit of India doing for the vast number of people who have purchased cars?

Why is the Automobile Association of Southern India not coming up with some kind of response to such a tragedy?