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In countries where there is better safety awareness and civic sense, rules of the road are strictly followed. There will be exceptions anywhere but that would be just exceptions and not as common as we find it here. Atleast the general attitude is better.

There people belt up before even starting the car, use low beams during night driving with traffic around, stop and let others pass at intersections and crossings, follow lane discipline, use public transport rather than 2 wheelers for a whole family if a car is not affordable, use child seats when carrying children in cars and belt up properly, etc. They have the common sense to understand it's for own safety. Every one else remains safe too in the process.

It is heart breaking to see the accident which has took the life of a baby. Un affordability is not an excuse to put a whole family at risk like that. It is common in our country but a million and more wrongs don't make it right. There is a reason it is illegal to do so. End losers are the people themselves who don't follow the basics.

Feel very sorry for the poor li'l baby. What was her mistake! I'm sure many more are traveling the same way as we discuss this. God save 'em or put some sense in people's heads!

Since it has temporary regn, it will have only Third party insurance unless the owner / dealer has taken the normal insurance.

The rider/father should be arrested for the gross negligence. :Frustrati:deadhorse The sentencing could take into account the personal circumstances. Also as per the article, its a case where the 2 wheeler had lost control due to skidding and the kid being thrown from the pillion rider. In what way is the state transport driver driving a heavy vehicle prevent this? Even if sudden brake was applied it depends on what speed it was travelling and what was the distance to the kid. Since he was driving the larger vehicle, he is now being arrested and and the same would be entered in his service records.

Irrespective of the economic conditions, carrying more than 2 on a 2 wheeler should strictly not be allowed in the current road & traffic conditions.

Yesterday a motorcyclist with 6, cut my car without any hesitation. 2 kids were on the tank, 1 sandwiched between pillion and rider, and the last kid on the lap of the mom sitting pillion. With this setup, he can barely see the road, leave alone using the rear view mirror. This happened in front of ega theater, where there is a bus stop just after you descend the bridge opposite to ega and take left. The bus in front of him stopped, and the easiest thing for him was to cut right, right in front of my car. Had it been any other time, I would have stopped and given him a earful. I was already feeling down, since my other car had been rear-end in front of the MMDA signal on Thursday last, leaving a big dent on the bumper. A car I had been driving across the 3 southern states(TN, KL & KA) so far for the last 7+ years, without being knocked from the back, and only 1 other accident where a bike guy rammed on the right door, while taking a U-turn!!

Even I ride a bike, and infact, am scared to take it on these heavily congested roads, more due to the manner in which the 2 and 3 wheelers use the road, rather than fearing the cars. Ofcourse the MTC buses during the congested peak hours are a league of their own, and less said the better

Summing up few incidents happened during last week.
You leave your kids unattended and unmonitored, they enter a car parked in a isolated area, the kids die of asphyxia, now you start blaming the owner of the car or the owner of the property and get them arrested.
You dig a bore well in your property, You don't close that,your son gets trapped in the well, authorities try to save boy by digging parallel bore, you start blaming them for causing damage to fertile farm land.
You carry a 11 month toddler unsecured on a bike, the kid is thrown below a truck and the truck driver gets arrested.
Now any one can bet such bizarre incidents will happen only in India and under Indian law.

Yesterday as i was riding from Bangalore to Chennai on my ktm saw a horrific accident around vaniyambadi on the golden quad highway. A container trailer truck travelling towards bangalore had jumped the median and the cabin (tractor) part was on my side (opposite side) of the road covering the highspeed lane into which a red bolero had crashed with minor front end damage, i immediately slowed down to the left got of the bike and tried going closer, when i noticed the trailer and container part of the truck was still on the other side of the road and as i walked closer found a completely crushed grey swift dzire totally crumpled and wedged between the trailer and the median, It was a fresh incident and ppl arnd were saying "dont go, they have still not removed the bodies" i was completely frozen at what i heard n decided to move away from there. The Incident left me completely shaken and cudnt ride normally after that. Few meters from there, saw police arrive and block the road, as trucks and busses were taking U turn to enter the service lane to travel further towards bangalore. The picture of the crushed car is still fresh in my mind and there is no way any of the occupants could have survived that crash. I doubt if the truck burst its front tyres lost control and veered into oncoming traffic and the dzire was on the right most lane, or the dzire tried (unsuccesfuly) overtaking the truck when it was changing lane. If any of you saw this accident or have any information about it please share, i did not take any pictures of the accident as i was totally shaken at the time.

Yes, agreed. Arresting the father doesn't solve the problem just like arresting a criminal doesn't undo the crime. While it's a given that everyone including me sympathizes the plight of the father in this tragic time, again we cannot let our emotions cloud our judgement. While there doesn't seem to be a law stating you cannot carry an infant on a bike, there is definitely a law stating 2 wheeler is meant for 2 ppl and not 4.

While maybe arresting the father doesn't solve anything, the problem here is they arrested someone else as if it is his fault which is totally wrong. This is what I am trying to say. Someone innocent should not suffer due to someone else's negligence.

The horrfying part is the bus driver is arrested under section for 'causing death by negligence or rash behaviour' while in reality it is the father who was negligent which led to this.

No one gets the right to pin their negligence on someone else because the negligent person lost a dear one in the tragedy.

And yes, I agree with you that educating the public of road safety is one of most important need of the hour. Our state governments seem to have enough money to run huge minutes long Advertisements about the achievements of their state close to election times but do not give a peanut's worth of time to run Advertisements on Road Safety.

Developed countries did not have all its citizens born with a first class license. Those countries faced huge number of fatalities like ours. Then they educated their masses through infomercials and Ads about road safety. This is the way to go.

I've seen small kids sleeping on the Bike Petrol Tank while travelling and have always wondered how low safety is on the parent's priority list. I wouldn't even even leave a bag on the tank, forget about a kid. IT IS a conscious decision made by such irresponsible parents. So if something goes wrong they better be held responsible for it.

Saw this accident yesterday around 8:20AM, near Mannar (KL). It had not happened when I passed the place some 30mins earlier while riding down to Changanachery.
Not sure what happened, but since there isn't really any winding curve there, possibly overspeeding coupled with a brief lack of attention.





This happened some weeks ago on NH47 at Neendakara, a little before the Sakthikulangara bridge. Tailgating seems to be the probable cause.

So-called-developed countries also have their fair share of grinding poverty. This is something a lot of people seem to forget. Still, in my mother country, anyone carrying a child on a motor bike would not only be arrested for traffic rules, they would also have a whole process set in motion that might result in their child[ren] being taken away from them.

I don't think that people consciously put their babes in such risk, even though there is a large it'll-never-happen-to-me quotient in their thinking. First and foremost, I believe that people have never been taught the basic (and easy) physics of what happens to a babe-in-arms or a child-on-lap (or the adults themselves) in an accident or a sudden stop.

Nobody knows this without education about the specific risks and about the general way of thinking to recognise and avoid risks. The absence of such education is obvious every time we take to the roads.

This is the problem that the country faces. It cannot be changed overnight, but it can be changed in one generation (was that Gandhi's quote about how to change the world? Education. In one generation.).

If anyone here thinks they can hold their child in the event of an accident, try this: fill a carrier bag with sugar or flour bags, hold it on your lap in the passenger seat of a car, and get the driver to do a proper emergency stop.

This might be dangerous. Perhaps better not. And if you do...

Wear your seat belts.

Do not put the seat belt over the bag*.

Do not blame me for any damage to the car or your arms.



*Never wear a seat belt over your child and yourself: you may kill the child by crushing it with your own body weight.


~

Cyrus, you have described it beautifully. This works its way at all levels. To the family who can't own a 2-wheeler the guy zipping about on his Bajaj Pulsar is a flashy character who is responsible for any accident he/she finds himself/herself in. Passengers of share-auto routinely join the auto-driver in castigating a car/bike with whom the auto had a near-miss totally oblivious to the dangerous manner in which the auto-driver was going along. To a family that cannot afford a car, the young couple in a Maruti Swift are guilty are by default guilty of ignorance of road rules if their 'cool' car comes in contact with the 2-wheeler. For non-luxury car owners, the driver behind the wheel of a Merc or a high-end SUV was trying to 'flaunt' his drive and must have driven in a way so as to "deserve" the accident (plus no sympathy since they can 'afford' to pay). And the list goes on... These stereotypes are not just thoughts; I have heard cops, idle bystanders and spectator motorists mutter this stuff at scenes of minor and major accidents. It's the Indian equivalent of 'the butler did it'. There's unfortunately a very deep-rooted thought that people who do not have sufficient means should be leniently dealt with by the law -- even to the point where a scrapegoat can be made of someone else. If this continues I'll have to get myself a rusted vehicle and some torn clothes as my driving apparatus.

Just a counterpoint!!

Insensitive?

A lot of people in this thread have stated that "We Indians take things for granted, and we don't believe it could happen to us"

THIS could happen to you. You may not be stupid enough to carry 4 people, that too an infant, in a 2 Wheeler, but someone else could, and he could lose control of his vehicle, his infant can end up under your car, you could be arrested for killing the infant due to reckless driving.

What would you do?

Plead guilty? Because the poor guy lost his kid, and you don't want to break his heart anymore, and go to jail, leaving your kids and family?

Or find the best lawyer you can, to defend yourself by proving gross negligence of the bike driver.

Being poor is not a reason to break the law, or endanger others safety and livelihood.

Empathize, but be logical.

P. S:

1. No worries for the bus driver. He must already be out on bail right now, and any lawyer worth his salt would blow this case away.

2. I was not blaming only the dad, but both him and the bus driver . We do not know whether the bus driver was at fault. He could be guilty of rash driving.

3. No more posts from me regarding this issue.

This came in just now from a friend - for those that can't read Malayalam, the driver of an overspeeding private bus (no need for the overspeeding qualifier, since they all overspeed) in Mavelikara (some 2 kms from my home) lost control, rammed 3 cars and finally hit a KSRTC bus - 20 people injured.




On another note, I think what binand is saying is plain reality, as it is here. Yes, we can take a moral high ground and say, "Why not take a bus or an auto or walk or leave kids with a nanny?".

Even leaving apart the fact that our most of us would have travelled with our parents on bikes, how many of us who ride bikes can truly say that they have NEVER taken their kids along for a ride - however short the ride might have been or how urgent.

Or if we take cars, how many of us have used child-seats to properly / safely secure kids in the back-seats of cars (in India) ? There also, it is the "it won't happen to us" logic at play.

Like Thad said, awareness is lacking and needs to be built. For all of us.

Motihari, Bihar - 18 people died in train-tempo crash on a railway crossing. All people were said to be of same family who just bought the new tempo and were returning to home after paying prayers of buying the new tempo. Though the railway authorities confirmed 4 deaths till now.

People said that the gatekeeper of this crossing always found under influence of alcohol and forgets to shut the gates. He did the same this time as well which cost so many deaths.

http://www.bhaskar.com/article-ht/BI...16603-NOR.html

It is 50% fault on the gatekeeper to have been drunk, but, the Tempo driver is equally to be blamed. I could not understand what prevented him from slowing down and secondly, Train is too large an object to miss. Tempo has a maximum speed of 50kmph only.

:OT - I have seen some helpless gatekeepers, who find it challenging to close gates on time as no one is prepared to wait for gate to be lowered. Everyone tail gates and also honks to the fullest, if the person ahead slows down or "yields" to the gatekeeper. I have noticed this on the Pallavaram 200ft road level crossing, before the flyover was built. Also on the St. Thomas mount flyover, Chennai.

I always wait and look in either direction before crossing tracks, irrespective of gatekeeper's presence / Gates / policemen. In Addition, I also turn down the music and lower the windows everytime.

Does not seem to be a level crossing with the gates since those have a signal which turns green only once the gate is closed and locked.

This probably was a manned crossing across an unpaved /low traffic road, but with a chain or beam to pull across the road manually , which the gatekeeper would not have done.
So the driver of the 3 wheeler would have thought there is no train coming and crossed without a second thought.

Just my guess. Either ways, it was fatal.