Team-BHP - Accidents in India

Quote:

Originally Posted by dailydriver (Post 4409594)

Accident:
I regained my balance and saw that a boy in college uniform riding a black Dio (that was what it appeared to be in that flash of a moment) had hit me from the rear. Before I could gain a clear picture, he accelerated and sped off, knocking down the bicycle once again. With a bent handle and bruised ego, I could only stare into the oblivion.

Happy to see you safe !

Indeed, everyone come across "bruised ego" during an accident, especially when there is no fault on them. Still, you have well managed the incident, overcoming that psychological urge to fight back.:thumbs up

Wonder, if one could maintain calm the same way, when his precious car was hit, for no fault on him:)

Accident reported from Kannur, Kerala. The car in which four youths (all 19 years old) were traveling, lost control and hit the sidewall of a culvert first and then went on to hit an electric post. Due to the impact, the car split into two and one half fell into the drain. The live wire broke and fell on it starting a fire which charred one person who was trapped inside. One person fell on to the road when the car broke apart and died. The other two are said to be out of danger, in hospital. The car seems to be a Swift.
http://keralaonlinenews.com/Kerala/k...ath-50586.html
http://www.mathrubhumi.com/news/kera...ead--1.2859604

Note: News in Malayalam.

Quote:

Originally Posted by A350XWB (Post 4409920)

The pic showing the underside of the swift is noteworthy - look at the amount of rust - must have contributed to the car splitting into two.

A slow moving vehicle tried changing the lane without checking vehicles in left lane caused this accident in Salem-Bangalore Highway. As per people around, the Innova was driven at high speed and the lorry driver changed the lane without noticing the car. From the accident site it looked like that the Innova driver tried panic braking, but without much success (due to the speed at which it was driven)

Good thing was that there were no blood spots inside the car. Only the driver side got the hit and guess the driver was using seatbelt.

Such accidents can be easily avoided if one drives at a controllable speed and the slow moving vehicles start using the left lanes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ravimathi (Post 4410197)

A slow moving vehicle tried changing the lane without checking vehicles in left lane caused this accident in Salem-Bangalore Highway. ...

Looks like the truck was attempting to make that acute angle turn and the Innova trying to squeeze into the gap and go through. Looking at the bulk of that truck and the angle it is in, it would have been inching towards that turn really, giving the Innova driver enough time to anticipate and brake. There seems to be enough space for the Innova to go through unless some other element was already there on the shoulder.

Quote:

Originally Posted by anantu2001 (Post 4410330)

An idiot auto-driver along with a biker without patience is always a recipe for disaster.

And the white Alto chap will blamed.

This is how it will go, the Auto will disappear even if it is going in the opposite direction, they are like magicians. The bike fellow will get up and start shouting at the Alto chap, after all he is in a car, even though the biker should ideally have challenged the Auto driver for his actions instead of squeezing through like a worm.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ravimathi (Post 4410197)

Such accidents can be easily avoided if one drives at a controllable speed and the slow moving vehicles start using the left lanes.

Absolutely. I always wonder, how come nobody ever fines these trucks for hogging the right lane? Also, if I'm not mistaken, rickshaws are not meant to be in the fast lane ever, except for at turns. Correct me of I'm wrong, anyone. But it seems like there's no provision for penalizing "hogging" as a classic case of loopholes in the law?

So in such cases, there's a law in place to prohibit certain stuff but no law to fine someone breaking the same law? Am I missing something here?

I came to know about the rickshaw one because I saw a cop telling it to a rickshaw guy who was ranting after he tailgated a Swift in the right lane on a state highway(Western Express Highway) and was claiming damages from the Swift guy! That's when the cop corrected him saying that he was not supposed to be in the right lane according to law :cool:

Quote:

Originally Posted by ravimathi (Post 4410197)

A slow moving vehicle tried changing the lane without checking vehicles in left lane caused this accident in Salem-Bangalore Highway. As per people around, the Innova was driven at high speed and the lorry driver changed the lane without noticing the car...........

......Such accidents can be easily avoided if one drives at a controllable speed and the slow moving vehicles start using the left lanes.

I drive frequently on NH19 and AH1 between Durgapur and Kolkata and these are a few things I noticed regarding trucks. These are not limited to this area but a nationwide phenomenon.

1. A truck stopped on the left or right side of a carriage way will always merge at an acute angle once it decides to move. This hazard is compounded near Dhabas where one can even expect trucks to initially come at 90 deg and merge.

2. A truck overtaking a cyclist or motorcycle or even an auto on the highway will suddenly overtake with an unnecessarily wide berth leading to panic braking for any following vehicle at higher speed on the rightmost lane.

3. Local trucks will generally move on wrong side if the median breaks are spaced far off.

4. The roughest trucks on road are local trucks ferrying sand/aggregates/Water, I generally avoid any confrontation with them.

5. During summers a road frequented by trucks will generally have remnants of tyre fragments of various sizes some big enough to cause serious damage if run over. I have even seen a complete tyre with rim/disc lying on the road and believe me it perfectly got camouflaged on the tarmac saw it at the last instant, Stopped my car and rolled it off the carriage way.

6. Overtaking from left is a necessary evil as most trucks will hog the rightmost lane.:Frustrati

Please feel free to add to this

Quote:

Originally Posted by shubhodeepdas@g (Post 4410453)

This is exactly what happened. The crowd that gathered around started to blame the Alto guy without even knowing what had happened. I stopped, showed them the video and finally all was well. Nobody injured.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RajeVenu (Post 4410543)

A truck overtaking a cyclist or motorcycle or even an auto on the highway will suddenly overtake with an unnecessarily wide berth leading to panic braking for any following vehicle at higher speed on the rightmost lane.

I had a scare of my lifetime when a truck suddenly swerved right exposing me to a JCB coming in the opposite direction near Salem once. :eek: Just swerved in time and avoided headlong collision with the JCB. Luckily for me there was no vehicle behind me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RajeVenu (Post 4410543)

The roughest trucks on road are local trucks ferrying sand/aggregates/Water, I generally avoid any confrontation with them.

Here in Bengaluru, the trucks carrying chicken can be added to the list. :Frustrati

Quote:

Originally Posted by RajeVenu (Post 4410543)

Overtaking from left is a necessary evil as most trucks will hog the rightmost lane.:Frustrati

I assume they do this to avoid changing lanes when there are slow moving / parked vehicles on the left most lane.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom (Post 4407200)

Maybe not. One of the worst examples of bad driving/riding. That rider pretty-much threw themselves at the bus.

Quote:

Originally Posted by selfdrive (Post 4407266)

He was solely and completely to blame for the fall.

If you watch the video again closely (the second time it plays - where it shows more footage), you'll see that he was tailing the Omni at the same speed.

The Omni then stopped rather abruptly and then even angled back out onto the road - which the scooter guy tried to evade.

Braking on 2-wheelers just can't match braking on 4-wheelers - so keep that in mind.

How the scooter just slipped out from under him like that - I don't know.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom (Post 4408680)

"Where there is a ball, a child will probably follow." Long been one of my driving mottos: shake your driver's hand for me.

Dear Thad, two days back we had this discussion over the anticipation, and last night itself I lived the moment where anticipation worked for me.

Not exactly an accident, but could have easily been one as this time I was the one who directly faced the an idiot head-on!!

Look at the video gentlemen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBKef6NQP9o

What happened?
I was overtaking this 18 wheeler on a narrow 4 lane dual carriageway, the car ahead of me already overtook the truck and could manage to swerve to left to avoid the idiot, the car behind me was closely following; but still had the room to brake and swerve to save himself. Me? Well, I am running parallel to the 18 wheeler, with around 2-3 inches on my right (after I swerved slightly to save) and hardly 4-5 inches on my left between me and the idiot who came in wrong side.

Observation: The Bolero ahead of the Innova I was following has swerved to left
Inference: Either a bullock cart or an idiot on the road
Action: Idiot alert activated and I backed off the gas

Obervation 2: The driver behind is closely following
Inference: No scope of hard braking
Action: Light braking action while making sure I am at the right point if an idiot appears

Sooner I saw the Bolero swerving, I backed off the throttle increasing the gap between my car and the Innova I was following. Suddenly I saw that the Innova driver also gave a high steering input and swerved to the left after having overtaken the truck.

I didn't had this option of swerving to left, but still I maintained my car parallel to the side under run bars; just in case I have to swerve to the left, then at least I will hit the bars and not a rotating tyre.

Suddenly this idiot appears in front of my car and his characteristics were:

High beam ON
Hazard lights ON (I saw in ORVM)
Not on the shoulder - even if he was on the wrong side; he wanted to drive on the road too

I was really surprised to see such a behaviour, the car behind me managed to brake and swerve to left, the car ahead of me too did the same. What actually surprised me was that how this person even managed to drive in the opposite side of such a busy stretch!! Anyone who knows the Delhi-Meerut stretch will understand what sort of traffic density I am talking of.