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Well, you know what they say. "When you are on a bike, ride like everybody out there is there to kill you."

When I am on a bike, I do not contest with cars, trucks, buses for any right of way or right of lane. Especially with the yellow boards. It leads to frustration, physical strain and sometimes unfortunately to accidents, similar to the one in discussion here.

I am not blaming the biker here, but sadly this is the state of our roads. We should watch the mirrors as much as we watch our front.

I hope every biker in Bangalore rides like you do. Unfortunately 90% of bikers are always in the mood for a challenge. They just need a little space and they will put themselves right into your path. Especially in the city they always swerve and never stick to a lane. Honestly I just think that they confidence of clearing the car is always at an all time high.

As regards to the video. The car was totally at fault. He probably needed a 200 BHP machine to have pulled of that overtaking.

If I remember the scene correctly, he just needed to wait a few seconds for a clear road.

Exactly. The biker was correct to occupy his lane. If he wasn't responding to honking or was unware of the presence of the car, the car only had to wait for few more seconds for a clear road. Moreover the car doesn't seem have a quick acceleration either.

The biker on his part could have been more aware of the situation around him.

I'm going to be contradicting you on almost everything here, but do hear me out, I'm not going to be impolite about it at all. Also apologies to the moderator team in advance for I'm perpetuating an off-topic conversation with regards to the nature of the thread, nevertheless I hope it fits somehow since we're talking of avoiding accidents.

This has been my experience for the past two days driving in my home city, Bangalore (the city with the highest number of 2 wheelers in the country, possibly the world at close to 3 million/30 lakh/30,00,000, a massive count given the developed area of the city being hardly 300 sq.km and roads counting for a fraction of that) - a two wheeler always sneaks up from the left, it doesn't matter if I'm on the right lane, the middle lane, or the left lane, they squeeze, squeeze and then squeeze some more. They always appear to move in troops, because of their sheer numbers and they follow the biker at the front, if he twists and turns in traffic so do they, if he squeezes ahead and boxes out a car by suddenly jumping into their lane so will others.

I already do defensive driving, I do not intend to unfairly overtake and infact, I usually get boxed out 3-4 vehicle lengths because of riders squeezing me from the left, making a hard right turn and occupying the road in front, there is absolutely no limit to their behavior. I also understand that in expressing some hate towards the "general" nature of behavior of two-wheeler riders, that I'm exposing myself to being called "classist" or "elitist", I'm not new to that, and I cannot control what others think of me even if that is the farthest thing from the truth - I hate anyone who plays unfair, be it a car, a bike or a rickshaw and truth be told they all play dirty, bikes simply are too vast in number and dimensionally too small hence they push their luck much farther.

In the end its a matter of safety for everyone, lane discipline, speed limits and then additional provision for others mistakes.. we all know it, but then people who choose to not follow these 3 basic rules make driving a painful, almost traumatic affair for those who do follow the rules. I detest such behavior and I believe that there is remotely no comparison between India and any other country (barring a few Asian ones), America, Australia, European country rules vary because the number of 2 wheelers there are inconsequential and perhaps can be counted in one hand given a specific road. I still welcome international rules to be implemented here, lets start with L-A-N-E D-I-S-C-I-P-L-I-N-E for 1, 2 ,3, 4 and 8 wheeled objects, no bias.

I agree with Madhav. On the road I'm either really aggressive or really docile but I'm really out of the way of most cars. I assume most are out to overtake me in the exact same fashion. I'd rather give way pre emptively and reach later, than be victim to a crappy overtake maneuver. More often than not, I'm happy giving way on arrow straight highways because I know that you can't argue road rules with physics. North India has far too many fragile car driver egos.

Especially on NH1, the primary highway to access the hills, there's just too many super fast cars. Either I tail a set of cars doing 90-100 or proactively make way for objects approaching me at good speed.

There's no such thing as right of way in India, only physics.

The video seems purposefully edited. Is there any evidence of what that particular biker did before the cabbie overtook him leading to a crash? Im not saying he may have done something, but on personal experience a lot of bikers have this insane ego where in they feel happy to have boxed in a faster vehicle as if by preventing an overtaking their manliness quotient goes up. As far as I know a cabbie will try his best not to cause accidents just to avoid hassles and delays. I believe this yellow board car banging the biker it is not an accident but a calculated act with the reason as of now unknown.

I agree with the last line of your post that as a Biker one has to be doubly careful as he/she is the more vulnerable person regardless of whose fault it was. But, I do not think it was the bikers fault in this case. The car was clearly at fault. It was the drivers responsibility to make sure that the overtaking maneuver, could be safely carried out.

With regards to bikers riding on extreme left side of the road. That is ok if the biker is going significantly slower than the traffic. But for this biker going at decent speeds, he was at the right place.
I attended biking schools in the UK and they have the concept called the 'command position' when riding bike on the road. That means that in single lane roads try and ride in the middle of your side of the road (as long as your speed is decent), to prevent exactly these kind of drivers from trying to unsafely squeeze through when the road is not clear, with oncoming traffic.

Common sense would dictate that , as a biker, one needs to look into mirrors and check over the shoulders to have situational awareness. It also means that if you see a maniac in a car coming too close for comfort, then anticipate the situation and slow down a bit to allow them to overtake.

But in this particular case, there is no doubt that it was the car drivers fault, even if he had honked and flashes lights etc, as somebody else suggested he might have!. There is no excuse for a hit and run. I hope he got his just rewards.

On my drive to Goa in V-Cross I encountered several Harley's since Goa was hosting the Hogs meet. Just after Satara Ghat a biker on Harley with luggage packed got an ego scar that I over took him at 100 kmph. He kept chasing me upto speeds I cannot mention after which I slowed down and let him pass and he continued speeding. The speeds were scary even for me on 4 wheels. The way he was riding it's only by gods grace if he made it to Goa.

Here it was the cars fault for sure, no matter what the biker did you cannot hit anyone on the road.

I have absolutely no arguments with what you go on to say. All correct. Except for one: it doesn't seem to apply to the biker in this instance.

Guys... really sometimes we go too far here. This is one of the most clear-cut-fault cases we have seen on this thread in recent pages. There are no reasonable ifs and buts, excepting that the poor biker should have been more aware for the sake of his own safety.

If we pick and pick, and go on and on, about something where we have a clear video, then no wonder there is so much speculation about some whatsapp forward of an unknown accident that is not really useful to anyone except the usual people who will criticise the build quality of the usual brands.

It is a forum; it is about conversation, which we all enjoy. But hey....

Got through WhatsApp group.

Happened at the Thamarassery Ghat (churam), Kerala. What scary moments the passengers and crew must have gone through.

As per the news reports, driver slept for a fraction of second and this happened !! Driver took the bus from Batheri to Thodupuzha and back ( ie almost 600 km in Kerala's busy roads) without a break. Bus reached Thodupuzha almost 2 hour late and as a result he didn't get any time to relax, they started the return journey straight away.

This ghat section has too many tight turns which are very close to each other. I think its difficult for any driver to sleep while they are on this section, so reduced
judgement could be the reason for getting out of road than sleep.

:eek: Utterly terrifying. Miracle escape.

Totally the car drivers fault. He terribly misjudged the entire overtaking manoeuvre and pushed the poor rider off the road. If this had resulted in a serious injury or fatality with such compelling video evidence, most western countries would have jailed the car driver for manslaughter.

http://kxan.com/2017/04/06/texas-dri...to-motorcycle/

If this is indeed the Doddballabhpur Road, I can second that it's a lunatic asylum with many idiot drivers on the road with a combination of new money from land sales and no idea of driving etiquette or skills.

As an aside, the Suzuki Ciaz is a new entrant into the must avoid list as many land sellers go for it as it gives the biggest metal for the new money :D

Ah but I never wrote about that accident at all, I mostly refrain from commenting about accidents unless there is something substantial to add, I only just now looked at the video and I have to agree that the car made some really bad decisions, not that my opinion or anyone else's matter really, though. Its not like we're keeping score of who supports who, the incident has happened and nothing that we say will have any bearing on it, past, present or future. My post was purely in reply to the video about road rules in Tasmania as posted by member Aerohit.

As for the bus incident, the KSRTC interstate buses are scary, I'd use train any day over these guys, just one mistake, one sneeze or one napping wink and that's all it takes for the bus to lose control completely. However its amazing how most bus drivers, without wearing seatbelts or with no additional protection at all, still manage to dive out of a bus after an incident, no matter how extreme and vaporize into thin air. Maybe KSRTC has Star Trekesque teleportation technology that beams 'em up into HQ.