[dark.knight]

Originally Posted by ashbhat2

Looks like a clear case of driver error. The driver was probably blinded by the goods truck from the opposite direction, after which he does a very sharp overtaking manoeuvre purely hoping on his luck that there is no oncoming traffic.

Originally Posted by Hickstead

A sudden tyre burst forced Fortuner to loose control and crash into XUV in the opposite lane. So Sad and Unfortunate

In both cases speed was the reason, whether in sobriety or in total inebriation it really doesn't matter much.. yes the primary reason why drunken drivers are cracked down for is because they lose senses when the spirits take control and have a warped view of physics and commonsense.. ironically even teetotallers who are hooked to the drug of speed have the same warped views.

Just see the video, is it really possible for a Fortuner to skip two lanes, mount the median and go flying across to the other side of the road without speed? As for the stupid bus driver he suffers from the Goliath complex like all of them do, "me big me go anywhere & people will respect me".. and let me guess he hops from the bus and vanishes into thin air as usual? Its about time these thugs on wheels are brought to their knees for once.. an instant job removal without PF benefits+mandatory jail time of 2-3 years+ should be a given in these circumstances. They should be viewed differently from a normal LCV passenger car driver, they are trained and from the government and are responsible for a house on wheels.

[Dry Ice]

Originally Posted by Hickstead

Fortuner and XUV 500 Crash:

A sudden tyre burst forced Fortuner to loose control and crash into XUV in the opposite lane. So Sad and Unfortunate !

Now how does one prepare for such things? What could have XUV done to minimize the damage, he didn't even have a second to react.

Driving in the left lane? Had it not been the XUV, the Fortuner would have collided with the truck, which was in the left most lane.

[centaur]

If the bus actually hit the Toyota Fortuner, most likely he is the one who is going to be blamed as the primary culprit for this crash. While the Toyota Fortuner driver is at fault for overtaking from the left and cutting lanes, he will try to escape saying that had the bus not hit him, he would have passed safely. Bus driver would say that he was not at fault because the overtaking maneuver was from the left and there was no indication from the Toyota Fortuner

[shoaib3030]

Originally Posted by TorqueyTechie

Saw this accident report online. According to the report it happened in moodbidri and the driver of the innova plus co passengers of the other car were lucky to get out with minor injuries.

..

More info from Daiji world

This gave me the chills. The Innova was too fast for a narrow road. Moodbidri is my native. I know the roads there. It isn't a place to drive at such speed. Especially when it pours.

[aravind.anand]

Originally Posted by centaur

If the bus actually hit the TFort, most likely he is the one who is going to be blamed as the primary culprit for this crash. WHile the Tfort driver is at fault for overtaking from the left and cutting lanes, he will try to escape saying that had the bus not hit him, he would have passed safely. Bus driver would say that he was not at fault because the overtaking maneuver was from the left and there was no indication from the Tfort

The Fortuner driver cannot tell all those tales, as swerving in front of the bus at highway speeds was not his only option. He could have used his brake to avoid the bikers in the left lane!

He was over ambitious when he took that left lane - he sure would have seen the bikes on these straight roads. He was over ambitious once again, when he tried the swerve move on a 2 tonne SUV. Poor people in XUV... May their souls RIP.

[wrongturn]

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

I'm far from being a fan of bus drivers and it's always nice if the vehicle being overtaken cooperates

No doubt that its the fortuner who is at fault here, I was talking about the scenario that may have lead to the accident.
Classic road rage situation where the bus driver wont let the fortuner pass maybe because he was honking too much?
Its a 3 lane highway, and no vehicle was at the right most lane. The bus does come to the right lane after hitting the fortuner in the end, that clearly indicates that he was driving in the middle of the highway with the intent to not let fortuner take over from any direction. The fortuner could not overtake from the right because of the median, pushed his luck overtaking from the left though he surely would have spotted the bikers on the straight road before committing to it and failed at it.
Culprit is the fortuner guy, but from my experience I would blame the bus driver also as it was probably his actions or the lack of it that lead to the accident. Fortuner guy didn't hit the motorcycles or the slow moving rickshaw, it was pure bad luck that he got that tiny nudge from the bus that left him fishtailing into the other lane straight on to the XUV.

This is what it looks like in the video. All hypothetical.
Fortuner hits the XUV, fortuner guy is the culprit, he failed as a driver as one needs to practice a lot of patience while driving on Indian roads.

[mayankk]

The most fault lies with this idiot group of bikers, especially the first lot who have stopped in the left lane. I dont understand why all the blame is being apportioned on the fortuner driver her.
Was he drunk? I dont see that in the video.
Was he speeding? Not evident in the video.
The only thing evident is the bikers, but cant be their fault cos "BIG car".

And, its fairly easy for even an 800 to drive over a median even at low speeds. Dont believe it? Discard your mechanical empathy, and try it.
On the highways, a lot of cars are driven badly a lot of the time. Buses, always. Bikers, especially on highways in the proximity of smaller towns, ALWAYS. They seem to derive some perverse comfort that when they have been sliced open by trucks or cars, the ensuing riot takes care of everything.

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by wrongturn

.... clearly indicates that he was driving in the middle of the highway with the intent to not let fortuner take over from any direction......

Or it indicates the bus was in the middle lane on a 3 lane carriageway, so was 'technically' doing the right thing (even if unintentionally)? Fast lanes are supposed to be used only for overtaking, not cruising. Presuming intent either way is useless because we have no idea what happened beforehand.

Everyone involved could've done things differently (except the unfortunate victims), but the Fortuner driver had a bunch of choices, and he chose the most dangerous one assuming everyone else around him will create circumstances by braking, swerving or simply disappearing to help him succeed.

A bus especially cannot safely handle sudden maneuvers, be it braking or swerving. But when have Indian drivers respected Physics?

[TorqueyTechie]

Originally Posted by mayankk

The most fault lies with this idiot group of bikers, especially the first lot who have stopped in the left lane. I dont understand why all the blame is being apportioned on the fortuner driver her.
Was he drunk? I dont see that in the video.
Was he speeding? Not evident in the video.
The only thing evident is the bikers, but cant be their fault cos "BIG car".

What you have said might be true in other cases but in this case you are wrong. The fault definitely is with the fortuner guy! Why,because he had 2 options :

1. Seeing that there is no way he could have completed the overtaking maneuver, he should have slowed down and tried the overtaking at later point of time.
2. Continue along the overtaking and pray that all others driving around you would somehow manage to give you way.

He unfortunately took the second option which resulted in this bad accident. Even if the two wheelers were not standing there, there was no way he could have completed the overtaking without atleast causing an heart attack to the bike riders.

[mayankk]

Originally Posted by TorqueyTechie

What you have said might be true in other cases but in this case you are wrong. The fault definitely is with the fortuner guy! Why,because he had 2 options : .....

I dont think so. Its an unfortunate chain of events set off by the first batch of bikers. The fortuner guy was comfortably past and ahead of the bus, and he had his eyes on the monkey in front of him. He decided to stop. If the fortuner had not swerved, he would have run over that congregation. If anything, those are the people who should thank their lucky stars that their casual disregard didn't get them killed. If anybody has to be guilty before being proven otherwise, its that first group of bikers.

[prithm]

Originally Posted by mayankk

The only thing evident is the bikers, but cant be their fault cos "BIG car".

The bus did clip the back of Fortuner at the very last moment.

Are those group of bikers or a is it some form of village cart ? Too grainy for me. And whole mass (black mass) is moving without any break in formation. Had it been group of bikers we will see the group pattern opening up.

What we saw here is clearly FATE AT PLAY. I am not going to judge anyone on road there, but it just showed so many things.

1. The Bus moving at slow pace. We might not know what was the trouble for this driver. I don't see him challenging or driving rashly.
2. Fortuner's decision to over take from left even when the road was open on right side of bus.
3. The last two lanes are indeed meant for slow moving vehicles.
4. The slow moving vehicle (cart I guess), the trailing bikers behind it and the Bus, the two bikers on the XUV 500 side of the road all had miraculous escape. IT WAS NOT THEIR DAY.
5. Fate played a cruel game with occupants of XUV 500.

I just witnessed and life has reminded me YET AGAIN, how things can go wrong in seconds.

[wrongturn]

Originally Posted by mayankk

The most fault lies with this idiot group of bikers, especially the first lot who have stopped.

These don't look like bikers it looks like a rickshaw, whats worst is that bikers are undertaking him that means he was way inside the left lane, even the bus driver misses him not by much even after hitting the fortuner and moving right from the direction he was initially going.

@cp_rao, sir I have already agreed that its the fortuner's fault, I was just trying to evaluate the scenario, and the way it looks if I had to judge I would judge the bus driver guilty but I am no one to judge. Its just my opinion, until I hear from the fortuner guy why he deliberately choose the left lane and not the empty right lane even where he was getting squeezed by the bus, did he not honk madly, as people usually do under circumstances, at the bikers ahead, wont that let know the bus driver that a vehicle is trying to overtake him from left. Bus driver did not slow down or moved right, even a little to the right, as people usually do, after taking notice of the car in the left and slow moving vehicle ahead?
Talking about physics I have personally seen them big Volvo bus drivers, this looks like a medium size bus, swirl from 1 to 3 lane without any issues, if you think that bus would have toppled if he would have brought it to the 1 lane from 2, I strongly disagree as in the end he does come to 1 lane.

[shubhodeepdas@g]

Originally Posted by prithm

1. The Bus moving at slow pace. We might not know what was the trouble for this driver. I don't see him challenging or driving rashly.
2. Fortuner's decision to over take from left even when the road was open on right side of bus.
3. The last two lanes are indeed meant for slow moving vehicles.
4. The slow moving vehicle (cart I guess), the trailing bikers behind it and the Bus, the two bikers on the XUV 500 side of the road all had miraculous escape. IT WAS NOT THEIR DAY.
5. Fate played a cruel game with occupants of XUV 500.

Was going to write the same thing, just to add.

It is not fair to judge the larger vehicle for not giving way to someone trying to overtake from the wrong side with an empty or almost empty lane available on the right. This guy is responsible for a lot more individuals on board with little or no technology to assist his driving as compared to a Fortuner.

Fortuner driver is solely responsible for the 3 deaths in the XUV.

[DriverR]

A few observations from my side.

The cycle rickshaw seems to be sticking left. The biker that overtook it from the left appears to have gone off-road to do so (possible seeing the approaching vehicles to his right, in the rear view mirror)

Maybe it is an illusion, but it appears to me that the Fortuner was not going that fast (maybe around 80km/h). It could climb the divider easily due to the low kerb height.

I don't think the bus clipped the Fortuner, but the Fortuner made no visible attempt to shift back to the road after taking the sharp right turn away from the rickshaw/biker. It seems to come at a straight line once it made that sharp turn. (Yes, i agree it should not have tried overtaking the bus from the left if it was clearly not free ahead)

The XUV too seemed to be cruising at at speeds of 80 km/h. This accident seems to demonstrate the dangers of a head-on collision at relatively decent speeds.

I wonder who all were belted up. (As per the report, the XUV had 8 members while the Fortuner had just the driver.)

All in all, it seems to be a case of really bad luck (Fate). Sad.

[VW2010]

I finally fell for the temptation to be part of this thread discussing what could have gone wrong inspite of knowing that its just luck why many of us escaped lot of these instances of accidents. I used to tell to myself that investigating and blaming a party is just stupid as i have gone through similar instances so many times and i am just lucky to not end up with one such results.

Those who claim that they have not gone through any such instances in this 1587 page thread is simply lying. But now i also want to be a sherlock holmes and investigate this fortuner incident.

The fortuner wanted to save the bikes. He slowed enough and tried to get away from the bike which he did well, but the bus clipped him and basically did the pit maneuver and had no chance as he was basically trying to use the momentum during his swerve.

Poor XUV had no chance to spot, brake or escape. Even worse was the two motorcyclist following that XUV. Hope they escaped with minor injuries. XUV i hope he was lucky enough to walk away from this unfortunate incident.

Lesson to learn is just take care when you overtake in a two lane from the left.