Team-BHP - Accidents in India

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Originally Posted by for_cars1 (Post 3990327)

The insides of the bus in the last pic is very horrifying. Due to the impact after hitting the ditch, all the seats on the right side have been ripped off their anchors from the floor of the bus. The seats along with the passengers would have piled up in front. A real bad and dangerously constructed bus body.

In the name of improving fuel economy, structural rigidity of vehicles have taken a severe beating, be it cars or buses.

Its very very common to see buses driving at over 100 kph, Some volvo's even around 120 kph, Which is just not safe, They even bully car's with loud horns and high beam even during the night, There was a special drive on the Mumbai - Pune expressway only to keep a check if the buses were using the fast lane, Even during that special drive i could see several of them using the same, Most of these driver's are big time illiterate which is also one of the reason's they drive in such a way and by not thinking about the passengers they are carrying or the circumstances that might occur if they had to brake from 120kph in an emergency.

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Originally Posted by honeybee (Post 3990002)

I wonder how long it will last as the court will most likely throw out the reason of his 18th birthday being just four days away from the accident. By law he was a minor when the accident occurred and that's how he should be tried.

Actually, the law in India has changed. The current law (in force since January 2016) is that if someone is between 16 and 18 years of age at the time of the offense, and if the JJB (Juvenile Justice Board) feels so, then they can be tried under the laws meant for 18+ people.

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Originally Posted by Tanveer_2558 (Post 3990356)

Most of these driver's are big time illiterate which is also one of the reason's they drive in such a way and by not thinking about the passengers they are carrying or the circumstances that might occur if they had to brake from 120kph in an emergency.

not as if literate people are any better. bad drivers are bad drivers. literacy seldom comes into question.

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Originally Posted by arun_josie (Post 3990048)

These days almost every car come with steel rims for spare tyre and some times even with different tyre size but I never thought about this nut issue. Very strange.

The point to note here is that my Verna was the one with all 5 alloy wheels while friend's Verna was the one with steel rim as spare wheel. The company must have changed the nut for both of them. But I felt very irritated over this change.

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Originally Posted by Tanveer_2558 (Post 3990356)

You are right. I remember travelling in Volvo from Delhi ISBT to Chandigarh through Harayana Roadways Volvo. While the condition of those Volvo buses were top notch but the average speed used to be almost 100 kmph. As a passenger you don't get to feel it because of the awesome suspension but surely it is a hazard for all fellow vehicles on road.

No doubt the bus driver is at fault which took 17 lives including a 4 month's old baby. Sad..really sad.
But Swift driver is also a moron. He was changing his flat tyre in the right most Lane of the expressway. I mean who does that? He should have taken his car in service Lane. He should be arrested for the stupid act.
And media is blaming express way for the accident. How stupid is that.

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Originally Posted by deathwalkr (Post 3990415)

not as if literate people are any better. bad drivers are bad drivers. literacy seldom comes into question.

Agreed but i was solely talking about such Best / ST / Volvo bus drivers, Not private vehicles owner, The ratio between educated private vehicle owners and such drivers will be huge i think.

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Originally Posted by HalfOctave (Post 3990416)

Totally, Any emergency situation in a bus which is doing over 100kph would be very risky.

There is not a great positive correlation between illiteracy and bad road manners. Traveling through the cities amongst learned and literate people, I feel it is actually the reverse.

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Originally Posted by Tanveer_2558 (Post 3990452)

Agreed but i was solely talking about such Best / ST / Volvo bus drivers, Not private vehicles owner, The ratio between educated private vehicle owners and such drivers will be huge i think.

To become a driver in a Govt run organization, you need some minimum qualification. Example- Matriculate/10+2/Class VIII etc. Also, the officials are literate, mostly intermediate pass and graduates. While the opposite is likely to be true for private owners. An illiterate can buy many buses (land acquisition for highways, factories made many erstwhile farmers rich overnight) and their buses can be driven by illiterates since there is no minimum qualification needed to drive a private bus. But the crux of the matter is, literacy has nothing to do with road manners, at least in India. Best example - Kerala (many posts on rash drivers in that state in this forum itself)

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Originally Posted by TD_GHY (Post 3990456)

There is not a great positive correlation between illiteracy and bad road manners. Traveling through the cities amongst learned and literate people, I feel it is actually the reverse.

To become a driver in a Govt run organization, you need some minimum qualification. Example- Matriculate/10+2/Class VIII etc. Also, the officials are literate, mostly intermediate pass and graduates. While the opposite is likely to be true for private owners. An illiterate can buy many buses (land acquisition for highways, factories made many erstwhile farmers rich overnight) and their buses can be driven by illiterates since there is no minimum qualification needed to drive a private bus. But the crux of the matter is, literacy has nothing to do with road manners, at least in India. Best example - Kerala (many posts on rash drivers in that state in this forum itself)

The problem is, You can get everything if you have some extra moolah to spend.

Just recently when a driver showed interest in working with us, I asked him a couple of questions to which he was prompt to reply, Including since how many years he has been driving to which he said 8yrs!

Upon handing him over the keys, To my horror he did not even know which was the brake pedal and the excuse he gave me was he hadn't driven an XUV 500 before!

He had a valid licence issue in Mumbai, He was from UP and he had another locally issue licence aswell.

My point here being its very easy to get a license, I am not trying to rude to people who aren't educated, Atleast just for me everytime i had an encounter with truckers and best drivers, It was never ever decent.

A freak accident claimed life of a 18 yr old student - the two wheeler they rode said to be speeding in the narrow overbridge, hit the median and then the side wall and fell down in the railway track below where a sub-urban ran over him.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/52529694.cms

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A youngster died when a suburban train hit him after he and his friend, riding a motorcycle just past midnight on Monday , hit the retaining wall of a bridge and were thrown on railway tracks below.

Gautam, who was riding e motorcycle, lost control the motorcycle, lost control of the two-wheeler when a car rear-ended them, a police officer said. "The motorcycle hit the retaining wall of the bridge at high speed," he said. "The impact threw them off the bridge."

A local train heading to Central from Arakkonam hit Adhil, who landed right on the railway tracks below, while Gautham, who fell only a few feet from the tracks, sustained injuries but survived.

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Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom (Post 3990542)

Not freak at all. A very ordinary sequence of events. If people will drive off flyovers and railway bridges, they are likely to be killed by whatever form of traffic is passing underneath.

Just another case of suicide by bad driving.

Yeah totally, It has happened here in Mumbai too several times, With biker's hitting a car or the median and falling off the bridge and loosing their life, And most of them happened due to over speeding and not judging the curve of the bridge properly resulting in loss of control.

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Originally Posted by IshaanIan (Post 3989655)

Using the handbrake and locking up the rear wheels, won't equate to shorter stopping distances. It'll simply mean that your car spins and will continue ahead due to the inertia it carries. Rev-matching and using the brakes and steering to add more stopping path ought to have been enough without the unnecessary damage caused by swinging your car around IMO.

Well put!

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Originally Posted by Trust_In_Thrust (Post 3989660)

Absolutely sure if I don't have space in front and I need to avoid something only way I can move the car is sideways. And handbrake provides a controlled way of doing that against just using the steering to drift . ☺

This is a misconception which would have saved your car from such damage. You dont use your handbrakes to steer the car out of way. There is the ABS for the same. By using handbrakes, you are totally screwing up the situation and rendering ABS confused and useless. You should have just stood on the brakes and let the ABS do the job to give you steering control. When you use the handbrakes, the rear wheel will make you lose directional control. Since it will lock up, the rear wheels will no longer be able to brake and ABS will make use of only the front wheels to brake, without letting it skid. This in contrast to your feeling will increase braking distance and not decrease it.

In any emergency braking situation, stand on the brakes and steer where you think is safe. Leave the job of maintaining control to ABS, ESP etc. If thats not there in any car, then do brake, and pray to god your vehicle goes where you want it to. :D

And also remember, you are better off braking and crashing into an object at front, than whiplashing your car into an object from the side of your car. Its safer the former way. Had you crashed into the pile up sideways, it would have been worse for yourself and other occupants of the car.

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Originally Posted by Tanveer_2558 (Post 3990356)

Over night travel by bus these days is much faster. Volvo's, Benz and Scania buses simply fly. I have travelled many times in private and Govt buses. Govt (Volvo & Benz) buses took longer time due to speed regulators compared to private buses, however some private buses have a very strong safety standards.

Now a days the private bus driver jobs have very attractive salary ranging from 25k to 40k depending on the route they operate. Generally, they are educated (I don't mean BE or MBA or MBBS) and well behaved too. As a norm, like we see on the city roads, we could also see some maroons there.

I this case the stupidity of the cars parking on the road could have caused the accident. I guess here they would have stopped for natures call or for tea. I have seen many a times, even to change the broken tyre, the stupid drives, with tie and coat would have parked the car on the road. Does it really damage the tyres by moving 10~20 meters out of the road and park at a safe distance.

I have done many tyre changes to my vehicle, and have always ensured I am safe from the traffic and also the traffic on the road is never hindered. The problem is at the licence issuing point. Until getting licence is taken as very easy, things would not change.