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This gave me another round of goosebumps. I was driving back from Nasik last week, and climbing up a ghat when I see a pair of lights darting across the divider about 20 meters away from me. A really loud thud followed. An eicher truck was speeding down the slope and couldn't control the vehicle on the descent. I had slowed down due the road having a few potholes, and had 3-4 other vehicles behind me. Just managed to swerve into the gap where the truck had landed on it's side and the divider. With the civic's low slung profile, we'd have been mincemeat for no fault of our's. The 'what if' thoughts that followed sent shivers down my spine.
Always invest in good bulbs for your headlights, always invest in a child seat for your children, ensure even your parents are always belted in and ALWAYS keep your eyes / ears and senses open to everything else happening around you. Thankfully all these things were in place for us that night. Driving in India is like and arcade game - you're always at the risk of being hit from left,right, center and even right above.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsZHjMqnkT4

And the unforeseen happened to me today in the Technopark campus in Trivandrum circa 9AM. The van carrying packaged milk chose to swerve right by initially moving toward the left, and my XUV500 ended up rear-ending his vehicle. Damage from a cost perspective would be in the range of 35k INR and the vehicle's side-panels suffered the greatest impact.

Commotion ensued, as always in such situations, where the passers-by tried to weigh in with their justification and an uncanny saviour rose to the occasion- It was the Garmin 45 DashCam (purchased last month on my US Trip) and I showed the footage which clearly showcased the van driver in the wrong- please click the YouTube link.

The owner of the van was quick to compromise, and I requested him to pay toward the 'Compulsory Deductible' of INR 2000 as I have the Zero depreciation insurance (hope I don't have to pay toward the Cost of Consumables).

Sadly, I lose my NCB and may also end up pay an increased premium when I choose to renew my policy.

Thats a very very narrow, nay a "micro mini" escape, you definitely have friends in "high" places. You have to believe in miracles.

I agree that behavioral traits/road culture is at play here. If you factor the number of inhabitants, India and China data always gets diluted. One needs to consider the number of miles one travels, or the amount of time one spends on the road. IMO, American lifestyle has meant that people live far away from work, and commute longer distances, for longer times. (with pretty much no public transportation)
Further, we also need to look at what percentage of the population actually has cars. 25 vs 800 is a large difference.
http://mecometer.com/image/barchart-...and-people.png

If you look at number of deaths per 1000 vehicle owners the numbers will look different.

Chevrolet Cruze falls off Mumbai flyover, killing two

A Chevrolet Cruze that was being driven at a very high-speed fell off the bridge. According to the police, a group of workers was trying to fix a hoarding on a bridge while a tempo that they were travelling in was parked on the road. The high-speed Cruze was coming from the Bandra-Worli sea link and rammed into the workers and the parked vehicle.
The Chevrolet Cruze lost control after hitting the tempo, and it went on to hit the retaining-wall of the flyover. The car then jumped over the safety barricade to fall down from the flyover. The car is said to hit a tree while falling, which absorbed all the impact and saved the lives of the occupants of the vehicle.
At the time of the accident, the traffic signal below the flyover was red, and there was no vehicular movement. Cops say that if the traffic signal had been green, more lives could have been affected by the high-speed vehicle. Witness claim that a female driver was in the driver’s seat while a male was accompanying her.
Courtesy : http://www.cartoq.com/chevrolet-cruz...r-killing-two/

You were driving a bit too fast in a place where some caution should be exercised, especially when there are such morons around.

This could have easily been avoided with a bit more self control on speeds.

I think he was following the speed limit as the speed displayed in the dashcam video has only touched 25 km/h. In most of the townships or tech parks this is the legal speed limit. He is not at fault at all !

Its not a matter of just speed sometimes, its also about playing it safe in terms of judgement. I personally feel there wasn't enough of a gap to overtake where he accelerated. The tempo moved very slightly to the left to take the turn (and was irresponsible for not giving a signal though).

The assumption might have been the tempo will continue to move to his left but that is an unsafe assumption given the way the tempo guy carelessly cut into his path at the start of the video.

Yes Mr. Jacob had not at all done anything wrong. More than pollution control, crackdown on old cars, mandatory abs, mandatory seatbelts etc. I feel vehicles ought to be stopped and fined for lack of ORVMS, lack of functioning brake lights, indicators etc. typically these goods carrying vehicles and few buses never have working tail lights or indicators this needs to change and their usage has to be implemented.

That said, I totally understand what reignofchaos is saying; having been riding a bike for about 15k kms now, and understanding that vehicles never acknowledge a bike's presence the hard way, I have learned to analyse patterns and predict outcomes, far more than when I used to only drive cars. Earlier when I was just driving, I would analyse patterns of driving ahead to chart the quickest way into the horizon but on the bike I have learnt to analyse patterns of driving just out of sheer survival instinct :eek:. Whenever these vehicles move over to the left I am always wary as they typically never do so because they are going slowly or giving you way, but because they intend to take a sweeping u-turn. In India abiding the law is unfortunately not enough.

Totally. He did nothing wrong legally but it's best to practice defensive driving at times for our own safety. Defensive driving is not a legal requirement but recommended when sharing the road. Again, the mini truck was the one at fault here but in my opinion this accident could have been avoided with a bit of defensive driving.

After watching the video i will completely agree with you. In our country abiding by law and maintaining speed limits is only one aspect, the real driving is knowing the style of driving by trucks,cars,two wheelers, autos etc. For that defensive driving is best way to go on.

For eg. trucks,lorries,tempos or any goods carrier will rarely give indicators for a turn or u turn. They will just create room and turn without even paying attention to Irvm or Orvm. I feel they just don't care about other vehicles cos the vehicle they are driving isn't their own. As soon as accident happens they will leave it and abscond.

Best way to overtake them is to do constant honking before and during the overtake so they are consciously aware of you. Now please don't get on my case that honking is bad cos in our part of the world it's better to honk than bear the consequences of a hit.:D

There is something called sensible speeds for a particular location. When one can see a vehicle ahead behaving erratically, the principles of defensive driving say that you should drop speeds to avoid any eventuality. That was not the case here.

Also according to most laws the car behind has to maintain safe distance also known as the 2 second rule. Doubt that was followed here.

This was an avoidable accident unfortunately.
1. The tempo driver should not be trusted after cutting in like that. He is definitely at fault for not having an indicator, mirror and probably a very lazy right hand.
2. Most tech parks have a limit of 25 kph and Also No Overtaking on the premises. XUV is at 35 kph at the start of the video.
3. There is simply not enough gap to overtake with an XUV where he starts accelerating.
4. At 23 kph, there was enough time to brake hard and do an emergency stop.

Thanks all- as some of you stated, I reckon there are 'lessons learnt' here, and do need there is a course correction needed on my end.

Another bloke the Dashcam captured a couple of days ago: the Fortuner tried to overtake the bus and ended up facing head-on toward me. The beautiful irony is the 'coffin maker' shop on the side of this road- my spouse hilariously stated the shopkeeper must've praying whole day for brisk business :)

Totally agree.

I felt the error was as much Mr Varghese's as the trucker - knowing the behavior of most trucks, seeing him take a U turn at that spot is completely understandable. Knowing such trucks my first instinct in such spaces, on seeing a truck move left, is to stop, honk, and let them take the (anticipated) U turn. Never hurts to be defensive as you say.