Team-BHP - Accidents in India

Quote:

Originally Posted by thedragonreborn (Post 4208520)

Not necessarily target fixation. If you look closely, he went into the Innova straight without controlling his turn. Very few people ride bikes with the ability to counter-steer. This turns out to be a critical flaw for most people with zippy bikes, when the natural centrifugal force for turns pushes them towards the outer edge of road, without them being able to control the turn.

Most Indians learn to ride on a friend's/cousin's/neighbour's bike, with all the instruction limited to using the clutch/throttle combine. Counter-steering is un-necessary and fancy mumbo-jumbo for most. Like strapping on your helmet.

Hello thedragonreborn, thanks for sharing your inputs. However, do you really feel the rider could have still saved it with a counter-steer? I think "No" for the following reasons:

1. When the rider was at the apex, he should have been already at a higher lean angle to initiate a counter-steer w.r.t the speed he was carrying.
2. Counter-steer too requires some space to be carried out, which was not available for the speed he was carrying. It will not magically change the direction of the motion.
3. His exit angle (direction) from the apex went wrong mostly due to target fixation.

Only and only way he could have saved it was by
1. approaching the curve S-L--O---W----E-----R or
2. by approaching the curve at a different angle which he couldn't because of the swift/dzire or
3. by closing down the road for himself.

Quote:

Originally Posted by IshaanIan (Post 4208554)

I feel like it is just a lack of passion and respect for machines. A sort of inflated ego that most Indian's try to maintain prevents them from ever learning such stuff.

I learnt how to counter-steer within the first week of learning how to ride a motorcycle
You will observe this behavior amongst many people. For them driving/riding fast is merely a question of having large gonads no sensitivity or skill required.

It is just that lack of sensitivity and respect for the machine and the feats it is allowing you to pull off.

Hi IshaanIan, with due respect to your views, passion might be an ingredient for many in or outside of this forum. However, for a higher section of the population a bike or a car is just a basic utility, hence it might be little unfair to expect the same. Agreed "counter-steering" is one of the important skills to learn and great that you got to learn it in the first week, but for most of the crowd it would be an absolutely unknown stuff. It will require more awareness, training and stringent driving license training and tests to sort this out.

However, IMHO, for most of the roads in India, only slowing down works (while following the traffic rules ). Even if the rider had knew about the counter steering and had been in a position to apply the same, you never know, might be due to the texture of the road surface or small pits or because of mild dust, he would have slided right within the wheelbase instead of the front fender of the Innova.

Completely off-topic, but since it came up, one of the videos for those of you, who prefer a proper live demo more than theories:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgaQsCLNKNw

I hope there might be many daily use-cases, still I wonder, for all the general purpose riding in India, when do we really need all those counter-steerings and on which kind of road surfaces? It might be just like the "ABS kicking in" (slight exaggeration, but for most of the cases in general road conditions), which implies, the driver/rider led him/her self into an emergency braking situation because of being too fast for the scenario having zero anticipation.
Might be we will have counter-steering also as an electronic feature in the bikes of the future to make it idiot proof :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by arighna.dutta (Post 4208869)

I understand what you are saying. Forget passion, how about a little respect and sensitivity? Is that too much to ask? It's the same logic behind using anything; would you slam a thin cupboard door in your house too hard? would you buy a kid an RC helicopter and allow him to fly it off of your terrace immediately? At the end of the day, no matter how affordable, driving/riding is a skill which ought to be respected and learnt properly and no one can ever expect to learn anything without atleast being sensitive to each input and its corresponding reaction. It is not as simple as reading the user manual and expecting to be able to operate something flawlessly ;) Unfortunately no one considers driving/riding as a skill that needs to be learnt properly and everyone including the RTOs and law making agencies are more than happy to have people do a half-arsed job of it and get away with a license. It is that chalta hai attitude where people fool themselves into thinking they've grasped something completely when they really haven't. If it were upto me, rev-matching, trail braking, counter-steering would all be compulsory techniques to learn in order for one to drive a manual car/bike. If not they can be given a provisional license wherein they can only drive automatic cars in the extreme left side of the road amongst the slow lanes. Afterall, even what you think of as 'slow' which let us say is between 30 and 50 kmph, are still speeds that the human body is not designed to travel at so don't you think people should instinctively care a lot more about how they are doing and whether their skills are upto the mark?

Quote:

Originally Posted by arighna.dutta (Post 4208869)

I hope there might be many daily use-cases, still I wonder, for all the general purpose riding in India, when do we really need all those counter-steerings and on which kind of road surfaces? It might be just like the "ABS kicking in" (slight exaggeration, but for most of the cases in general road conditions), which implies, the driver/rider led him/her self into an emergency braking situation because of being too fast for the scenario having zero anticipation.
Might be we will have counter-steering also as an electronic feature in the bikes of the future to make it idiot proof :)

As I mentioned earlier, one can counter steer as long as they are above parking lot speeds. As soon as I am out of my colony gate, I counter-steer through nearly every corner it is very simple and usable on a day-to-day basis not an emergency maneuver or something which can only be practiced while racing on a track at high speeds or anything like that. Improving your control over a vehicle is not something you need to do only if you are in motorsports or driving for the president. It helps you everyday on nearly every road especially in a lawless country like ours. It is no-where close to as rare an application as having your abs kick in. You can counter-steer past cows, counter-steer through sweeping bends in the road, through flowing traffic etc. it simply puts the bike into a lean without you having to make much effort.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr.Boss (Post 4209019)

100% agreed the fault is on the helmet-less guy, BUT this accident could have been avoided if the guy on opposite lane moved a little towards his left. Once could easily figure out he has at least 3 or 4 foot gap on his left. People drive with ego than sense.

Hindsight is always 20/20.

Though when you're in the moment and something like this happens it's hard to say how you'd react. In this case I think the white-shirt guy expected the other biker to move back into his lane, but the Baleno coming out further changed those plans.

When something dangerous happens suddenly, it fires your brain and body into reacting fast, however, this was one of those situations where the danger level slowly and smoothly creeped up over those few seconds...

Quote:

This gundagiri from cops has to be brought to check. Especially these traffic constables who do not know how to respect motorists and think they could do whatever they can if they are in the mood to stop. They have absolutely no idea of the motor or traffic laws.

Quote:

What negligence.
Such things have happened in the past in Kerala too. Once case I recall is where the cop grabbed the shirt of the pillion rider causing him to fall off into the path of an oncoming vehicle.

Guys, though I agree completely to the fact that many a time the cops are to be blamed here for 'Illegal Methods' of stopping a probable offender, I think the commuters are to be blamed equally.
How many times have we seen cops trying to wave down a motorist, and that idiot trying to slither through. In fact, I have seen many people performing illegal U-turns, median splits, etc just to avoid a junction which has some sort of police presence.

Blaming ONLY COPS is not fair in my opinion. They go through so much pressure everyday that their duty is almost a torture at times!! :Frustrati

And let us not forget the fact that every time a copy tries to stop a vehicle, he is in as much of a danger of being run over/hit by the vehicle as the rider/driver.

I am not by any means trying to take cops side here. What happened in the above scenario is very bad and the lady should not have died to being with. We also have to think as to why the Cop "Pulled Out the Key" in the first place, probably the motorist was trying to escape the routine check or had something to hide from the cop??

P.S - If your documents are clean and you do not have any 'Illegal Stuff' on you, it does not hurt to stop when a cop flags you down. MOST OF THE TIME, a quick chat is all it takes for you to get going. :thumbs up

Quote:

Originally Posted by sharc_biker (Post 4205060)

Yes. In fact, a large crowd from a nearby village soon gathered and some were spreading rumors that my car hit them both and that's how the accident happened. Soon, there was a group of "experts" who began examining my car to look for damage and one "expert" even had the audacity to point at an old broken left fog-light and say this must have been the point of impact. :Frustrati

Thank God they (and you) are alright. It is a miracle they are. Problem is, many of them still don't learn from experiences.

You, I must say, had a good presence of mind and reaction time was less. Your dash helps you from a lot such incidents. I use one for cycling, it is no doubt a great security tool.
I like the 3 second rule.

Does your vehicle have ABS? - If yes, did it hinder you from swerving to your left during the incident?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vik0728 (Post 4209169)

P.S - If your documents are clean and you do not have any 'Illegal Stuff' on you, it does not hurt to stop when a cop flags you down. MOST OF THE TIME, a quick chat is all it takes for you to get going. :thumbs up

Off-topic:

I agree and disagree.

Let's be honest: even if you have all the papers, a valid PUC, no tints, were within speed limit and following every other rule, are you confident that the cops will let you go, without any hassle?

I'm not.

A cop has caught me somewhere near Agra for "over-speeding". This, when I had just joined the highway 100m back! When I asked him what the speed limit was, he said I was over-speeding. (I was barely 40ish km/hr)

No speed gun.

When he realized I was asking him for reasoning, he accused me of having an illegal CNG in my car. Then LPG. :uncontrol

I had to open up the hatch of my Corsa and show him.

He had taken my DL so I was pretty much at his mercy. Plus this was UP where humanity, logic and decency are on life support.

My mother was in the car and I've generally observed cops to have some decency in communication when there's a lady around, but this guy continued his filth.

He said he'd take me to the police station if I had a problem with it.

I had no option but to pay him 500. I didn't even want to bargain. Oh, and no receipt.

Worse than the cops, are the IPS fellows. Because they feel they're entitled.

A cop near Jalgaon stopped my HR-reg car and when he realized there was nothing he could fine me on, asked for 100 bucks just because I showed him a photocopy of the RC, not the original. When I told him that I had the original in my bag, he shrugged and let me go.

I am fairly sure I could pull this off because I spoke to him in Marathi.

Things are bad when everything is going right; imagine, when something goes wrong and you are completely at their mercy.

Problem is: our Constitution has given these jokers far too much power, without any accountability.

So, if you don't "know anyone", you're fished. :D

I absolutely don't break traffic rules and have nothing that the cops can have a problem with, but the moment I see a cop, I'd rather not have anything to do with them. Even be stopped for a routine check.

True, they operate in very awful conditions and face tremendous risks everyday but it doesn't justify their behavior.

Remember those famous memes that cropped up in America post the police-shootings: "When I see a police car in my mirror, I get scared instead of feeling relieved".

To.The.T.