Team-BHP - Accidents in India

Dispassionately looking at these pictures (no offence meant to anyone, RIP of course):

1. Looks like the driver was very very unlucky as the car probably aquaplaned at E-way speeds and immediately hit the badly designed drain wall. Typically these should be angular to direct the vehicle away from the wide section, but these ones are totally square and present a huge surface area which is perpendicular to the direction of travel.

2. Frankly a bit surprised to hear of driver plus front passenger deaths and serious injuries to both rear passengers. Seeing the pictures, the cabin is intact and the airbags/SRS etc all seem to have worked.

3. I seriously doubt that the driver (being from the auto industry himself) would not be wearing belts as also his wife in the front seat (I assume?). The person sitting behind the front passenger however was NOT wearing a seatbelt, which is probably why the front seat has been so badly pushed forward.

Quote:

Originally Posted by itwasntme (Post 4013884)

2. Frankly a bit surprised to hear of driver plus front passenger deaths and serious injuries to both rear passengers. Seeing the pictures, the cabin is intact and the airbags/SRS etc all seem to have worked.

Does that cabin look intact? :Shockked: to me it has badly disfigured, the steering column bottom cover is broken, the whole centre console has disintegrated and IP shape looks to have disfigured... Wouldn't the BMW keep beeping if the front occupants are not buckled up?

Quote:

Originally Posted by aravind.anand (Post 4013899)

Does that cabin look intact?

Apologies, cabin here means the body-shell itself. The crumple zones seem to have delivered with relatively less cabin intrusion given the inevitable high speeds and even though the impact seems to have been with a slightly frontal offset (and completely) non-deformable barrier!

I agree, interiors are always a different story :Shockked:

Quote:

Originally Posted by BeingCynical (Post 4013868)

A young senior executive of Bajaj Auto along with his wife and two children was driving from Mumbai to Pune via expressway. Due to rain and slippery conditions, his BMW skidded out of the track and hit the median killing the executive and his wife on the spot and badly injuring his two kids.

This is one confusing accident, clearly airbags seem to have deployed. If I understand correctly, airbags only deploy in such luxury german cars when driver/passengers are wearing seatbelts.

Is it possible that the driver and passenger are no more because of the injuries caused by the rear passengers crushing them. In India I find very few people wearing seat-belts on the rear seat.

I regularly get frowned upon by friends and family alike for insisting they do when they are in my car at least.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BeingCynical (Post 4013868)

... Due to rain and slippery conditions, his BMW skidded out of the track

Quote:

Originally Posted by centaur (Post 4013870)

The first report which came said that the driver lost control and there was only a minor drizzle, not a heavy rain.

This goes back to one of those lessons my father drilled into me: What causes a skid?

And, having gone through everything I could think of, from oil to ice, the answer is... The driver. It is always the driver that causes a skid.

Quote:

Originally Posted by harryputtar (Post 4013915)

Is it possible that the driver and passenger are no more because of the injuries caused by the rear passengers crushing them. In India I find very few people wearing seat-belts on the rear seat.

I regularly get frowned upon by friends and family alike for insisting they do when they are in my car at least.

I religiously wear a rear belt where possible and insist on the same with my co-passengers. People stare at me as if I've just stripped off!

Old but gold:
https://youtu.be/4SEy_FCJlpk

:Frustrati

Seeing this video on Youtube five years ago, I still can't stop thinking if all my seat belt usage is of no use, when the rear passengers would absolutely, NEVER, EVER wear seat belts.

Can coax the front co-passenger to wear the seat belt citing new laws and all, but rear seat. No way. I can persuade my peers and my parents, by showing them videos of the importance of rear seat belt usage, but other elder folks would never wear seat belts if they are in the rear seats, and I sometimes think that am carrying a 70+ kg missile waiting to hit the back of my head.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6Qhmdk4VNs

Quote:

Originally Posted by IshaanIan (Post 4013713)

From my experience they are covered under insurance. I was in an expensive crash years back and all of it was covered under insurance.

Couple of things that I would like to point out are as follows :
a) I am not an expert however my observations are not based only upon the single photograph that I have uploaded. I happened to pass by the accident site soon after it happened and saw the car's condition myself.
b) Rear seat passengers were not wearing seat belts which is evident from the damage sustained by the front seats and the extent to which they have been pushed back. Enough information is available on the Internet and this thread on how rear seat passengers can actually kill the guy in the front seat in the event of an accident, if they are not belted up.
c) Bulge in windscreen suggested that the front passenger may not have worn seat belts either.
d) The 3 series is 5 star rated by Euro NCAP and this is a well known fact. At no point am I comparing it with a Japanese or for that matter any other car. Considering the high speed of the impact I believe the car has held up well and if everyone was belted up, the front passengers MAY have survived.
e) The present COO of my company happened to have a similar accident on the Mumbai Goa highway 6 years ago. The similarities are eerie. Husband wife and two teenage kids on a trip to Goa collided with a similar structure in an earlier generation 3 series and all 4 walked away with minor injuries because they were all belted up.
Having said that, no car can guarantee survival, as many variables are at play. However safer cars and following basic rules do increase the chances of surviving and that's worth everything.

A really bad accident happened today morning (early hours from what I hear) at Poovampuzha (which is between Kollam and Neendakara). This is supposedly a National Highway (NH45), but in reality is just a 1-lane each-way road. An Innova coming from Kollam hit a KSRTC superfast headon - 4 fatalities in the Innova reported (unconfirmed). The driver of the Innova apparently dozed off. The KSRTC driver tried avoiding the hit, but could not - possibly because the road is narrow and nowhere else to move away to.

My wife passed that way today morning on her way to work and was too disturbed seeing the condition of the vehicles involved. She said the front (engine-bay + front passeneger cabin) of the Innova does not exist anymore. The front wheels of the bus were detached. Both of which seem to indicate the high speed & impact of the crash.

It is disheartening to hear of so many lives lost in accidents daily. And makes one worried too about long-distance driving. There was a time 10-15 years ago, when I would just jump into the car after work and drive Chennai-Kerala through the night (14 - 16 hours). Today I hesitate to think of doing such a drive even during the daytime.

Regarding the BMW accident, is that section of the expressway curved?
Any buyers for the tyre burst theory? because I see the sidewall ripped on the driver side wheel - could that have happened before impact?

Asking BMW owners and experts .... Is is conformed that BMW airbags will NOT deploy if front passengers are NOT belted?
Also, I see the headrest of front seat has touched the windscreen. It seems more likely that the paramedics moved the seat forward to extract the rear passengers.