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The bit at the end did catch my attention - were you telling your child that this was the reason why you don't allow him/her to go with mummy (presumably on a two-wheeler)? :)

Yep, you beat me to it - the two wheeler was in the car's blind spot - the car driver failed to do a proper shoulder check and assumed the mirrors told the entire story.

At the same time, it appears the two wheeler rider was inattentive and blissfully unaware of not only the car's intentions (defensive driving) but actual movement to merge into the main road!

Adding on to that excellent point... In my younger and stupider days on a two-wheeler, I too practiced defensive driving on a bike in particular, and I ascribe that as the reason why I'm good at anticipation even today when I'm older (and equally stupid!).

Funnily enough, I found that defensive driving on a bike often meant speeding up - simply because it often took you out of the danger zone surrounding you and put you in the visibly safe zone ahead.

For instance in the case of this clip, if I were on the bike, given a choice of slowing down to let the Eon merge ahead of me, or speeding up to overtake it, I would have generally sped up. Not because I was a speed demon, not because of ego, but simply because slowing down on a two wheeler carries its own uncertainities - such as being tapped by the vehicle behind me, being side-swiped by an impatient cabbie, etc. If there were a clear way forward and room ahead, I'd use my bike's superior acceleration to move ahead to safety.

I concur.

Defensive driving necessarily does not mean slow driving.

What it means to me is to stay away from the potential predators :D on the Bitumen Jungle that can pounce upon me either intentionally or unintentionally. ..

And dodging them can mean either speeding up or braking down as the primary objective remains to stay away from them as much as possible..

I preferred slowing down in the present case as the bike is overwhelmingly loaded with people , which is beyond its capacity and accelerating it might exacerbate the situation..

Why were you asked to move to road side by the guy in brown shirt?

I strongly agree with everything you say. I do not believe in the death penalty for idiots!

In this instance, though, and from the limited view, I still think the 2-wheeler basically committed suicide (hey, I hope not literally: lets hope they are alive).

If we could zoom out --- then maybe we'd see a car driving as if nothing is going to happen ahead, and nobody is going to do the stupid thing. We don't know. Don't have that information.

I brake, for instance, when I see people climbing over medians. The people behind me hate me for it. I don't care: I've seen someone jump off a divider (in UK) in front of a car.

I beg to disagree. If you cannot spot a vehicle that is millimetres away from your door, the possibility that the driver is blind is higher than the vehicle being in the blindspot. If you see the video at 0:09 the biker is almost parallel with the car. The impact is at 0:10. There is no attempt by the car driver to correct his course during this crucial 1 second. The car driver was busy in other things so could not spot the bike. He is the one at fault since he is merging into traffic.

That said, the biker wasn't any wiser either. It was easier for him to spot the car merging and take defensive action, but didn't do so. The cause for the accident, however is the car driver.

I to do the same in Bangalore. Just see all sides and pick a spot which has a large space. That way, I try to put myself as far away from the car as possible and do have a gap to move into if he gets uncomfortably close.

And yes, I do honk if they are driving too dangerously.

Defensive driving means slower driving in India. I do slower average speeds as I yield to people who have no brains.

My take is that the Eon was merging into the main carriageway and is 90% at fault. Either he/she should have joined later or joined earlier but accelerated away from the oncoming 2 wheeler.

The balance 10% I would ascribe to absentminded-ness of the 2 wheeler rider who was anyway laden way beyond any reasonable ability to manoeuvre.

I earnestly request you to take a relook at the video.

At 0.09s, the vehicles were almost but not exactly parallel.

The car is slightly turned towards right while the bike was going straight.

This small angle can cause a blind spot.

Once the driver fails to notice a vehicle in blind spot, it almost becomes impossible to recognize a sudden appearance of vehicle adjacent to them.



To put it in a perspective, the biker was approaching along the hypotenuse of the red triangle ..

I don't get your point here mate. How does being a mother supposed to change anything.

It's simple, you cross a road blindly, you die. You jump off of a bridge, you die. You stand in front of a running train, you die. You close your eyes and cut your neck with a sharp object, you die. You point a pistol to your head with a loaded pistol and pull the trigger, you die.

Plain physics and simple logic apply here. It doesn't matter who you are, you do a stupid act like these, you die. Mother, grandmother, poor farmer, rich doctor, supreme court judge or anyone, as long as you are a flesh -and-bone human, you die. No point in adding emotional justification to it.

Mate, don't get me wrong. We're all good and nice human beings. Just that a wrong act is a wrong act. And one pays for it.

I feel like in the Eon-bike accident. It was more of a lack of attention on the road by the driver rather than a blind spot mistake. Things such as opening up Google Maps while driving, playing Pokemon Go while driving are all things that most of us do on a regular basis which lead to a real deficit of attention on the road.

I agree. On top of that, what was the need for the car to come so much to the right of the road towards the centre. Maybe he was trying to cut straight onto the fast lane. Similarly the two wheeler, with all that load, should have kept to the shoulder on the left instead of going in the middle of the road.

Another point is that if was wearing a helmet then the car probably was in his blindspot.

Well, I guess technically, the Eon was at fault. The car was merging to a busy road. A good driver would have slowed down and then entered the road. If you see the video again, the car driver enters the main road at the same speed, without any slow down. You would also start believing that the car driver had already seen the two wheeler and was in anticipation of him slowing down. As soon as there is a contract the car applies break.

Yes, two wheeler should have been more careful, that too when going along with wife and kids! Happy to see people rushing to help!

I have been in a similar situation many many times - on both sides of the coin, the Eon and the bike - and come close to a crash on all occasions. But, never in India, and always in the USA!!

Whether it is the ORR Bangalore or an Interstate highway in USA, merging from a ramp or slip road into the main carriageway is always a little more difficult when traffic is both dense and smooth flowing, as it was in this case. The trick is for both Eon and bike to be fully aware of all traffic, and never ever put yourself in a position where you (or someone else) ends up in a blind spot.

If it was difficult to judge this correctly for me, after 25+ years (and lakhs of km) of driving experience, for the Eon and the bike, I guess it would be way beyond their wildest imagination.

Bottom line, however, is that the Eon driver is squarely at fault here. He merged safely into the left-most lane and then began cutting across without looking (I think). You really need to hold your lane for a few seconds to orient yourself to the traffic in the main road, before changing lane.

That's right, my kid always wants to go with her mom on 2 wheeler and am totally against it, so I was showing this as an example :)

I asked him to move so that I can park my car, since my wife had gotten down to help the kids who fell from bike, so this guy was asking me where I was going.

All the Eon driver had to do was look over his shoulder to cover the blind spot and he would have spotted the two wheeler.
The thing is most of us don't bother doing that extra to make sure we have a safe passage and most of us don't know there is something called a blind spot.


Lesser said about the two wheeler the better.