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The feedback I posted is verbatim from the statements given by biker eyewitnesses to the police and who was part of the folks who helped at the hospital. Of course, that story is LESS sexy than a death-defying stunt gone wrong, which is what all the "news" rags want these days.

I atleast respect Rushlane for updating their story to reflect that POV.

In some articles its mentioned that the riders were totally unrelated to each other. They just happened to crash head on. But according to some others both of them were members of a stunt group.

Its so hard to tell which of these versions is true.

In the rat race of 'Breaking News' News agencies never check the facts beforehand. They just publish the news as stories. The 'post truth' always apears after creating a buzz to create another buzz. Its how they earn their bread and butter. :mad:

I agree completely. It doesn't matter how many wheels, or what gender, the position from which to overtake the vehicle in front is not a few feet (or worse) behind it. Far, far too many people think that it is.

And, not withstanding my keen participation in the gender-equality campaign, increasingly I notice that two-wheelers recklessly over- and under-taking me, or generally just driving stupid, are not the usual boys, or guys in striped shirts --- but have duppatas flying in the wind.

Poor biker. Hope his protective gear saved him from any major injury. Looks like the road from Doddaballapur to Bangalore. Idiot car driver. Since ages Bikes don't get any respect on our roads and people expect them to go on the edge of the road and don't give them one complete lane. That's what the bugger car driver must have expected the biker to do. Lot of things need changes on our roads!

Did that car simply scoot?

Can't really be sure. The car may have honked, may have flashed its lights. A lot of bikers tend not to look in their mirrors.

Whatever the car driver may have done to attract the biker's attention, he/she still had no business to move left into the biker's path even before completing the overtaking and knock him out. In this situation, the car shouldn't have overtaken the bike at all with the bus rapidly approaching in front.

A classic case of an overtaking manoeuvre gone horribly wrong.

Unfortunately this is how a majority of the people overtake on our roads be it two wheelers or four wheelers, they simply overtake either from the right or left and then cut straight into the lane of the vehicle being overtaken instead of continuing in their lane/path until they are far and well clear of the vehicle being overtaken.

For sure it was wrong no doubt there. I ride most of the time myself, but while driving I have been caught behind bikes or two wheelers way out onto the road blocking overtakes going extremely slowly (probably feels fast on a bike) and even other cars do the same. Just today I spent a lot of time in a traffic jam and the cause I found was a woman talking on the phone driving in the fast lane. I am not saying the solution is banging into their vehicles or that it is justified all I am saying is that I am not sure who to sympathize with as in such a case it can drive you up the wall when people prevent you from moving forward.

Wanted to share an accident I had been in last year, merely 23 hours after I bought my first bike:

Prelude - It was November 2015 I was riding a rented FZ16 with my friend sitting behind me. We were on our way back to his place and it was raining heavily for some reason I decided to take a route through narrow streets with a lot of slush all the while remembering what most of my friends told me when I first decided I wanted to learn how to ride a bike "you will pakka have an accident, everyone does. There are riders who have crashed and riders who have yet to crash" suddenly while maneuvering a left turn the bike skidded on some slush and almost fell down but luckily it wasnt too heavy and I was able to prevent it from tipping over. My friend and I were grateful that we didnt get our clothes messy in the slush and I remember being so proud, I told my friend "that's not how my first bike accident will be; not looking, stupid travelling at low speeds, sliding on some slush while turning slowly. It has to be at high speeds, with me going to the hospital" (I don't know what I had smoked back then lol: ) my friend had immediately replied "I just shouldn't be there on that day man".

Fast forward to Feb 2016. I had bought an RC390 after much consideration, my skill level had risen and I was able to manage the weight and the leant forward position with ease. That night it was a friend's birthday party but I was dancing and drinking in celebration of my bike.

I went over to my friend's place in the afternoon since he wasn't at the party and he wanted to see the bike. We went mad over the fact that I had finally bought it (had been discussing this for months) then decided spend the rest of the day at his place. As we headed out of the gate and onto the main road, we were struck with the slow-paced aimless traffic of Bangalore and in no time I was nipping and weaving between cars and bikes until we hit a stretch that was open till the next signal. You guessed it! I wrung the throttle wide open and banged through the gears since I had that initial curiosity about how fast this bike was. Before we knew it we were hitting high speeds.

Just then an alto began crossing the road from a break in the divider on the right, heading towards a lane on the left. Tried braking but all we were left with was a split second; if we went straight ahead we would have T-Boned the Alto at tremendous speed so I instinctively swerved right aiming for the tiny gap between the rear of the car and the divider. It was a long-shot and we kind of made it, well most of us at least; the left portion of the bike including my left hand went through the car. I don't even remember the sound it made.

Due to the momentum we were carrying with us, we didn't fall and I simply ended up slowing down to a halt at the side of the road. The left side fairing was loose, mirror and windshield had been broken and while parking it at the side, that's when I realised; my hand was gone. After the adrenaline had worn out I was in excruciating pain and was quick to get off the bike since I could not handle any weight on that side. Luckily there was not a scratch on my friend, soon a crowd gathered and I was getting bad vibes. The Alto fellas took me to a hospital as soon as they saw that I was injured. Verdict: 8 fractures spread across my fingers and bones in my left hand including a hairline fracture on my wrist, apart from shards of glass pierced through my entire arm (more on that soon). My fingers had to be yanked straight to set the bones in place.

An hour at the hospital, new cast and a ton of painkillers later, we stepped out, saw the damage the car had taken and it was surprising to see that my hand had gone through all of it; the rear passenger side fender was bent out of shape, the passenger side tailight was not only broken but the entire housing was dislodged as well which meant there was just bare unlaquered metal on the inside and finally, the dickey door had been curled/ripped open. It was all quite a mess doctor advised me to file a complaint but Alto chaps and us came to an amicable quick conclusion not to do anything about it since neither of us had the time to deal with cops.

My friend and I proceeded to the bike, I asked him if he could ride and he was game. Turned the key, flipped the kill switch and the fuel pump whined, rpm did a sweep and "ready to race" came up. That was the last thing either of us wanted to see for a while :D the rest of the weekend was a blur everyone had things to say, people wanted to draw on the cast, people wanted to lecture me, etc. My friend later reminded me of that night on the FZ16...

For 4 months I struggled to regain any strength in my left hand. Broke a glass bottle of water that summer simply because I was not able to grip it properly. Physiotherapy was extremely important for me. Even today my hand just isn't quite the same and this is an accident that I am reminded of every day. Since not only might it have been fatal if we went straight into the car, but even though I might have cheated death, it has left a lasting impression on me and ensures that I do not take any risks on the road anymore.

Lessons learnt:

1. People do not take into account bikes on the road the Alto did not bother to pause to check before crossing the road at all.
2. You are far more vulnerable to the effects of less traction and braking that 2 wheels offer compared to 4. The limits are way lower
3. Just don't speed especially within city roads regardless of road condition because anything can happen.
4. Unless you're on the highway, the 390 is a pretty explosive machine that should not be ridden at wide open throttle within the city.
5. Multiply your level of awareness 10 fold because on a bike there is simply nothing to protect you unless you are wearing gear and are fortunate enough to slide uneventfully

Up until the accident, my attitude towards learning how to ride was very aggressive. I wanted to push the limits in order to learn as quickly as possible. Now my riding style has completely changed and is better suited to the streets. Pushing the limits are left only to the track. This summer will be spent at Apex racing academy.

Sorry for the long post.

Definitely the car driver's fault, however, it's also clear the rider had no idea that there was a car attempting to overtake him.

Always a good idea to check your mirrors every few seconds for this reason. I'm in no way blaming him, but having that situational awareness might have enabled the biker to avoid the accident altogether.

Glad to see he was wearing riding gear! :thumbs up


From the Youtube comments:

• The rider is fine (thanks to helmet + riding gear)
• The driver of the car ran off
• They have registered a police complaint
• Whoevers fault it is, end of the day bikers pay the price... so wear protective riding gear

I completely agree with ishaanlan. The simple awareness of where you are on the road and your speed and sticking as left as possible if you're too slow as compared to the traffic on the said road you're in and giving way to people who might need to be faster than you seems to be lacking in almost 80% of drivers most of the time. The reasons could be many but that's how it is. And it's bad. And dangerous at times. And is one of the main causes of road rage and driving related stress in the days of ever increasing traffic and bad infrastructure all happening at once. However, in this case, that doesn't justify the Getz joker of a driver one bit.

Looking at the behaviour of the car driver, he seems either distracted, or then confused, or inexperienced or then all of the above with a liberal dash of stupid put in. He didn't seem too keen on overtaking at first, a same bus passed them just seconds before and he was well in line then. Later he nonchalantly went on to the wrong side of the road and when he was faced with another oncoming bus he decided it was time to swerve left and chose dashing a bike rather than having a head on with a bus. I have no words for this guy. All I can say is I definitely won't be a passenger in a vehicle with a similar type of driver like this. It's equal to suicide and he'd kill everyone including himself. But he himself is totally expendable anyway.

All in all a pretty stupid display of driving skills by the car driver. He had space to make it between the bus and bike but his maneuver was wrong and that made it hard to execute it. Maybe he and the car were both not upto it. The biker doesn't seem to be much in the wrong though he seems to be hogging the road a little.

Hope the biker survived that crash, looks like his helmet wasn't fastened and his head hit the tarmac :Shockked:! I'd blame the car for choosing an inopportune moment to overtake! I usually give a wide berth to bikes, cycles and auto's as it's a sort of 'Brownian movement' of traffic on Indian roads: 'All is well' till to you don't touch any one; after that 'hell breaks loose'. It's in the best interest of everyone to move to automatic cars which teaches patience and also removes the pain out of driving. Never get that close to anyone except at crawling speeds, otherwise this sequence is a given. A 0.5 m wide bike hogging 40% road space and not allowing faster moving traffic to move ahead leads to a situation like this.

I would say this - both biker and car driver were in a "ive got bigger b***s than you" mode, some 2-3 seconds before the accident. A similar bus at similar speed passed before, the biker was very much leftwards in the lane and the car guy (athough not maintaining proper distance) was behind the bike. Once the car guy decided to overtake, he went all out - constantly on the wrong lane, almost in parallel to the bike. Once the bike guy saw this, he slowly changes his track from left side of the lane to middle of the lane, just to challenge the car guy 'did you think its easy to overtake me?'. The car guy has already seen the bus rushing in, could have backed off - what one earth will be lost, if the overtake is delayed by 2-3 seconds ? - but he still thinks 'no matter what, im going past this piffing biker' - until it was too late and he had to do a 'squeeze'.
I just wish the car had suffered high body work damage

Nobody has a right to overtake.

Honking and flashing does not give right of way.

These are absolutes. No arguments accepted. I'd agree that one should not drive in a way that obstructs others either, but that is a matter of courtesy.

In this instance, the car driver is actually acting as if he is on two wheels, and driving like a bad biker. What was the need to overtake between the two vehicles? To go for that gap, when one or two seconds would have given him a clear path. Idiot should not be on the roads.

I really hope the biker is ok, and that stupid car-driving fool has not cost him in personal injuries and bike repairs.