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I hope this is not off topic.
In case of a dog coming onto your path and you car is being driven at high speed, what would BHPians have done or what would you recommend should be done?

In my opinion we should try braking, if not possible, hit the dog ( I am an animal lover myself, so although I may sound insensitive, I believe if it is a choice between my family's safety or an animal, I would definitely choose the former) Swerving or veering will cause more damage and harm to the passengers. I knew of a business head in my organisation, who tried swerving to avoid a dog and his Toyota Altis hit a milk truck at high speed. Fortunately, he survived with minor injuries, but the car ended up being a total loss.

I faced a similar situation a few months back, and ended up unwillingly hitting the dog, since the brakes could not stop in time. I avoided veering or I may have faced the plight of these poor Kerala doctors.

^^ Many years ago when I had a Sipani Dolphin, this happened to me on the GST Road, just beyond the airport towards Pallavaram. A dog that looked like a stray suddenly came across the road. At that time it was not a divided road, had only a yellow line in the middle. I decided to hit the dog and did so. Car's left side hit the dog, it was thrown off with a yelp and I saw it getting up and running away in the rear view mirror. May be the dolphin's fibre body saved the dog or may be it died later on. I was doing about 60 Kph.

Ten years ago I ran over a dog that suddenly darted across from a bush near the sankhey tank in Bangalore. This time I was on my bike doing about 50 Kph and had a nasty fall. This dog too got up and ran away, but would have died later IMO. My front wheel literally ran over it's stomach.

When I was in Australia, I used to be surprised at the amount of roadkill on the roads. Kangaroos have a habit of jumping on to the roads and there used to be hundreds of them dead daily on the highways. When I asked about this, I was told that it was very dangerous for drivers to brake or swerve on the highways when they are driving at speeds of around 120 km/ hr. Not only will you be putting yourself in danger, but also the other drivers who are behind or beside you on the road. So the drivers are told to keep driving and not brake, when they encounter animals on highways.

When we toured north India in multiple hired Innovas and Ertigas, one common point was a horizontal bull-bar running the entire length of the bumper on most of them. I casually asked a few of these drivers and owners and the answer always was yes, they understand that it transmits heavy collisions directly to the chassis and bends them.

However, in many many cases in collisions including stray cows, buffalos and dogs, these bars avoid heavy damage to vehicle fronts including bonnets, bumpers and radiators.

Think about it, hitting a stray dog or goat at 100 km/hr is guaranteed to totally wreck most sedans and hatches!!

People may do it for financial practicality (to themselves), but that doesn't make it any less stupid or dangerous.

Not only are they knowingly prioritizing their vehicle's well-being over their own, they're almost certain to hurt their victim(s) in a collision much worse than if the bull-bar was absent.

Absolutely. Fitting bull bars is like putting knives on the front fo the vehicle. That is how much their owners care about any human being they may be unfortunate enough to hit.

They are killers.

Huge exaggeration. Hitting a cow, or a buffalo, yes: thing probably weighs as much as the car and doesn't have any crumple zones, but a dog, goat, or even a human? Damage, yes, but totally wreck? no.

We read and see many accident reports on newspapers and here too. But this one really tugs at one's heart.
I second suresh_gs on what will be going through the mind of young lady. Aptly said that human life has no value here.
Cattle are treated better than humans in India.

Regards-Sonu

I second you. I have had a recent unfortunate incident of hitting a dog at high speed on a highway late at night. I didn't try to swerve & avoid, but just pressed the brakes as fast as I could. I would recommend the same, as firstly, even if you try to swerve you may end up hitting the dog as you cannot predict its reactions, and more importantly, swerving at high speed may put your car in an unmanageable situation where you may cause a more serious accident.

Definitely, the car gets severely damaged by hitting a dog but the damage is mostly limited to the bumper and the car can usually be still driven to its destination.

I love dogs too, but what do you do when it is a cow or worse, about half a dozen cows calmly sitting in the middle of the road and along the divider? No shortage of those on sarjapur road leading up to madiwala / koramangala, never mind highways - BBMP is missing a golden opportunity to impound those animals and fine the owners.

Hitting a half ton animal will not do much good to your car - plus there's the risk of getting beaten up by the irate owner and/or any bystanders for killing a "go maata".

In this case - a vet luckily happened to be passing by and performed emergency surgery right on the road, assisted by a bunch of bystanders providing light with their cellphone flashlights. http://www.bangaloremirror.com/banga...w/47578189.cms

It happened to me while driving down from Kolkata to Bangalore, near Orissa-AP border, a billy (baby goat) came out of nowhere! I was with my parents in my OHC Vtec and was carrying a boot full of stuff! Braked as hard as possible, but could not avoid hitting it.
The damage, a brand new denso condensor and a broken radiator! Though I couldnt see the billy, I'm sure it would have been badly hurt!
Still get goose bumps! As it was the first such kind of an accident I encountered in so many years of driving.

Absolutely!



The problem is if these killers dont change, public may not change either

To clarify, I am certainly not condoning fitting such bars. Was only stating a fact of life from these drivers who do thousands of kilometers every year on Indian highways.

I still stand by my statement, that if you're unlucky, any dog-hit at high speed will certainly end that lovely driving holiday plan. However, no doubt better than swerving fatally into the median!

Hitting the brakes hard will cause your car to swerve with locked up tires unless you have ABS. If your car has ABS, it will slow down (not as much as you want though) but you will still have steering control. Biggest worry of hitting the brakes hard on the highway is getting rear ended.

Avoid driving on the right most lane and stick to the left lane as much as possible. It gives you some reaction time when an animal darts out from between the plant growth on the divider. Generally to the left, there is enough clearance to give us an indication of a moving animal, giving us enough time to react. Its those dogs that dart out from the divider side that cause maximum trouble.

Hitting the animal is a tough decision to make as subconsciously our brains are tuned to avoid living beings. Truckers, I've seen, just don't bother or probably there is nothing they can do with the amount of mass they carry.

Eh if you drive on the left most lane that leaves you dodging people driving two wheelers down the wrong side, pedestrians, people trying to turn into a side road / service road.

Right lane - or center lane if you want to be absolutely conservative but that's a medium speed zone where long haul truckers tend to stay, so you'll be absolutely safe but you'll also reach your destination several hours later than you thought.

Whoa! If the road has pedestrians, two wheelers etc.. then your speeds have to be within controllable limits. Its easy to avoid a dog when you are doing something like 80 kph. I recommended sticking to the left lane on those fast four laned highways. The left lane actually is the driving lane. THe right lane is only meant for overtaking. Those slow truckers that stick to the centre lane end up forcing motorist to overtake from the left creating dangerous moments.

If there are three lanes, then the left and the middle lanes are driving lanes. The rightmost lane is always the overtaking lane.