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Not sure if this belongs to this thread, but feel sad on the state of affairs.

Vehicles burnt, turned over in Chennai. Not sure on the authenticity of the data

https://twitter.com/nilaavan/status/823524649522921472

Mods: Feel free to merge to the right thread.

Sadly the driver of the WagonR cab died on the spot. And apparently it was his first day at Uber. The news reports say the BMW was overspeeding at around 120 kmph. From the pictures, specially the damage sustained by the BMW, this guy was easily driving at the upper 3 digit speeds. He has the audacity to point out that the cab driver brakes suddenly. I hope he gets sentenced for Murder as this is not an accident, when you are above the speed limit by a factor of more than 2 ( with 50-60 kmph being the legal speed limit in Delhi).:deadhorse

True that. From what I read the driver didn't have any visible injuries and some one did try CPR on him!

Looks like he suffered due to internal injury (Spine maybe?).

Can be anything from internal brain injury to heart and major vessels getting shattered against the steering/dash. The important thing is that we probably need to redefine the word accident in our law. Driving at triple digit speeds ( and it would be easily above 140 kmph judging from the damage that the BMW has suffered) in a place where the standard speed limit is 50 kmph is not an accident. It is outright criminal.

Sometimes such incidents make me wonder if speed breakers after every few hundred meters is the only way to make people abide to speed limits.

It may sound good in theory, but in practice it will probably just cause gorier accidents (can't even imagine the kind of carnage wreaked by one such speeding car taking off from an unmarked speed-breaker). Not to forget the 'expertise' of our PWDs which can turn even an innocuous speed-breaker into unmarked death traps.

Build what we may, nothing will eventually deter a bad driver except harsh laws and their own conscience. India has neither.

P.S. News ticker says the 'gentleman' is already out on bail.

I have nothing but sympathy for his grieving relatives but the man may have paid for his own driving mistake, albeit too high a price.


Who recorded/calculated the speed and how?

News reports also say that the cars were going from Kalkaji to Vasant Vihar. Why would a chap living in Panchsheel drive 7 kms to Kalkaji in the opposite direction and then take a U turn to drive the distance all over again again in addition to the 4+ kms from Panchsheel to the accident spot.

One report went on to say that the WagonR's engine was completely destroyed, this while pointing to the CNG cylinder. A leading english paper quoted a 'Technical Director" claiming that a steering mounted air bag would have saved the driver. How the airbag with it's untouched sensors upfront would have deployed is beyond me, maybe I need to be better informed.

News reports are to be taken with fistfuls and not a pinch of salt, I take them with bag loads.



Modern cars are built to crumple upon impact at speeds far lesser than the mentioned digits.

No one is saying that the Beemer was not speeding but then again this could have happened at 60 or even 80 kmph. There is no way of knowing except by reading the data from the vehicle's ECU.

As for the driver's statement, he may be telling the truth but no one would want to believe him at this stage as he was in the bigger vehicle(always the guilty one, by default) and he did run away.



If I were in his place in all probability I would have run away too. Why? 'Cause when he can be tried and proclaimed guilty of murder here without hearing the other end of the story and especially without any sort of investigation of any kind(scientific or otherwise) he would have been beaten black & blue or even killed by the public at large.

Sure he is guilty of hitting the other vehicle from behind but the thought of a mob lynching would cause any one to flee.




Why am I writing this?
I am doing this because there is a very good possibility that the cab driver did stop abruptly and did not leave the driver of the BMW (who was too close in any case OR maybe closing the gap rapidly due to high speed OR distracted due to him too using his cell phone) any time to react. Notice the surgical impact and the lack of any tire marks behind the Beemer. Even with ABS and what not a vehicle under heavy emergency braking would shed some rubber on to the tarmac.

The spot is beside the flyover that is built over the T junction where the Africa Avenue meets with the Outer Ring Road. The road besides the flyover is very broad with a minimum of 3 lanes and double that at and before the signal. I use this road quite often and have seen vehicles missing the U turn under the flyover (prior to the signal) slowing down and cutting across lanes, even stopping and reversing to take the cut when they can just drive another few meters and make the U turn at the signal itself. At times some vehicles miss the right turn completely and then stop and reverse after having crossed the signal, this when once again the turn off from Munirka is just another 100 odd meters ahead.

It is quite possible that the taxi driver was looking at the UBER App map for his next pick up and became confused or distracted and stopped the car abruptly not leaving the BMW following him at higher than saner speeds & obviously with not enough gap to even try and dodge the Wagon R stopped mid track.

Look at the snaps & if possible look at the video on the ABP news channel, it becomes abundantly clear that there is more than enough room on either side of the taxi to enable anyone with reasonable reflexes and driving skills BUT with enough gap to have avoided the whole mishap.

I may be bombarded for being partial to the rich guy, do so but do ponder and answer honestly as to how the increasing number of untrained & inexperienced APP based taxi cab drivers behave on roads in your cities. How are their driving mannerisms with eyes on the phone screens and the way they park while waiting for pickups, with nary a care about traffic flow, blind turns etc. I am experiencing with increasing frequency incidents of abrupt braking and halting, cutting across lanes, occupying complete lanes of narrow streets even proceeding wrong way in clearly marked one way lanes and more by taxis and I will be very surprised if no one else has.

Again the Beemer guy is guilty of rear ending but his driving may not be the only reason for the death of the taxi driver .

As bad as the cabbie may be driving, it's the following car's legal responsibility to cover all 'reaction time' contingencies. There will always be idiots on the road who'll do something unexpected, it needs to be accounted for while driving. In reality, defensive driving is an alien concept to most.

Most cars on our roads are driven the way you describe, and cabbies have an especially bad image when it comes to bad driving practices.

That being said, I removed specific references to driver types from your comment above (marked <deleted>), and your grievances seem to fit every single driver type out there, cabbie or not.

Not passing judgment one way or another, but bad driving is hardly the forte of any specific driver type, and it's plenty obvious everyday on the road. Awareness of traffic rules and common driving etiquette is not (and should not be) a function of a person's license and registration type.

In most cases of rear end collisions , whiplash injury is the common cause of death. A whiplash injury from an automobile accident is called a cervical acceleration–deceleration injury or CAD injury.
wagon r lacks proper driver headrests to protect the neck in case of a rear end collision. In such a case neck 1st moves opposite to the direction of impact and without proper headrests it can causes severe damage to cervical spine.
i wont speculate regarding the speed the BMW X5 may be doing, but to me the damage to BMW is more cosmetic than structural. its mostly the bumper, AC condensor/radiator etc also the bonnet has crumpled exactly the way it is suppose to. damage to the wagon r is much more obviously because of relatively much weaker structure and also the fact that X5 weighs twice as much. IMO impact speed was very likely <80kmph . at triple digit speeds a wagon r would have been thrown apart and damage to X5 too would have been more.
the below video shows how much damage a 2015 camry incurs in case of 80kmph rear end impact.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvVD7DHRK8A

as pointed by other members, over speeding , ill trained cab drivers relying more on app based maps than on driving , poor road design etc have become a major safety concern on city roads.

I don't doubt your analysis at all. And I agree that the taxi driver must have done the usual mistake that all app based cabbies are doing these days all the time i.e. to look at their phones for locating a passenger etc. But the bottom line is that the bmw driver must have been doing insane speeds which made him lose control of his car and his surroundings. Physics and crumple zones are all there and yes we would be only guessing here until a formal investigation is conducted, the results of which will never be known to us. But from the numerous accident accounts and pics on the forum involving German cars, one thing is usually seen that more often than not, these cars suffer minimal damage even at considerable speeds. On the other hand maruti and other car makers fare very badly in most incidents, with their cars mangled beyond recognition. Hence my assumption that by the way that bimmer has got mangled in the front, the collision must have been a high speed one.

I honestly have no problem in the bmw driver leaving. I myself own a car from that stable and I have seen and read many a times about the harassment that one is put through if one chooses to stay.

Anyone in an accident can leave if they fear for their safety, or fear harassment. But they should make their way immediately to the nearest police station and submit themselves there. That's the honest way.

Running away and going AWOL will lead to the inevitable conclusion of guilt, something to hide (DUI, etc.), and so on.

EDIT: And if someone fears harassment from the police themselves given their affluence, in addition to surrendering at their police station, they can call their lawyer for legal guidance.

not immediately but within 24 hours. This gives them time to even go with their lawyer. This is what is mentioned on RTO Karnataka website (I guess it will be same all over the country) http://transport.karnataka.gov.in/in..._of_anaccident


Off topic but what is AWOL? Absent WithOut Leave?

Thank you for clarifying what the K'taka RTO says. I'm not too impressed with the 24-hour limit, though, given the implication that 24 hours can have on DUI.

Given an option, I would say that the recommendation should be reduced to 1-2 hours (within city/town limits), and a call to the highway helpline within 1 hour if such an accident were to occur on the highways.

And yes, I used AWOL as a shorthand for disappearing/absconding after an accident, not in its literal sense :-).

Probably the wagonr was reversing at the speed limit. Because, it is possible that the other guy was not speeding. The relative speeds could be accountable for the amount of damage.

PS: Not employed with ARAI or NCAP. The damage looks to be much harsher than those shown in crash tests.
PPS: Sar-chasm

My view is this: If you do not present yourself at a police station and volunteer for a blood alcohol test within 1 hour of an accident, then the burden of proof that you were NOT DUI should rest on you. That is, the investigators only have to show that you were present at a place where alcohol was available (restaurant, club, bar, party... even someone's house) maybe in the 8 hour window leading to the accident, to convict you for DUI.

Didn't the BMW car had DVR camera system? I am not sure if it comes default with BMW cars. If yes, then that should be primary evidence.