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One of my dad's lessons: "when does a pedestrian have right of way?"

After I had been through all the highway-code answers, he wanted more. I could not think of more. His answer...

Always. You are not allowed to run them over.

Definitely agree. There were at least 2 bikers that were riding very fast in quick succession. I wonder if they were racing or just having an adventure ride together on a busy road.
This road almost looks like a shared zone.

Agreed ! However, if you watch closely, the lady is running on the road too. She too should be blamed for the mishap. She didn't look at the left side, or panicked looking at the bike - not really sure.

If you look closely, she starts crossing the road and when realises that a bike is coming, she starts to run. One cannot blame her, she did what most of us would do. However, the bikes shouldn't have been so fast in a crowded, slow moving traffic area. A person crosses before the lady does, the bikes should have slowed down. after looking at him. They didn't. No doubts, their speed was the cause of accident, just can't blame the lady.

Well humans are not perfect and bound to make mistakes in judgements like this. The road in question is not highway and more to this, it looks like shopping and pedestrian zone.

During driving training in Germany, it was imbibed in my mind that no matter how silly human action sounds, it is vehicle owners responsibility not to kill him. You should always drive with the speed where your stopping distance correlates to the environment around to you and your response time.

According to me, Biker should be found and prosecuted accordingly to serve justice. Driving license is not license to kill. I am really feeling sad for the pedestrian. I hope victim is not the kid.

Occupants escaped with minor injuries. (whatsapp forward)

(Let me play the devil's advocate, literally)
I don't agree. Both of them are at fault. She jaywalked and if you look closely, right before the accident, she sped up erratically for a split second onto the bike's path. If she had uniformly moved the way she did when she crossed the road, there is a healthy chance that she would not have been struck. If the biker should be brought to justice (which he should), she should be fined accordingly to the law for crossing the road unsafely too.

I've watched waaay too many videos on the internet where a pedestrian jumps onto the cars path hoping for insurance payouts or lawsuits. Her last second erratic movement could be construed as something along those lines, no?

Ok, agreed. But then we should also take into account many things. Why a Zebra crossing was not provided there?

How many such videos are from India? I haven't seen anything like this for sake of insurance payout.

You can't have a Zebra crossing just about anywhere, that's common sense. Every road is bound to come to an end or a traffic intersection, ideally, you cross there.

That doesn't mean someone in India can't get an idea and try insurance fraud.
--
Anyway, here's what probably happened. The lady was absent minded and started to cross the street. She got a "shock" or excitement when the first overspeeding biker zoomed by. In this confused/excited/startled state, she heard another fast, loud bike approaching but did not visually confirm where exactly the noise was coming from, so she wanted to get across asap. And that's where she erred.

I am not justifying the speed of the biker in anyway. However, if you look closely, the person crossed the road before "first" bike passes and the lady tried to cross the road before the "second" bike. In my opinion both are to be blamed. Going by rules, pedestrian is not crossing the road from zebra crossing (rare in India :)) and biker is riding too fast for a smaller road.

Well roads are not pedestrian zones please:. Zebra crossings and footpaths are meant for same.

Someone well said, when in Rome, behave like Romans....that goes for Germany, Norway....etc. and India as well. I am sure the pedestrian too would have been prosecuted in "that" country for not following the rules.

No sane person ("motorist") would drive with an intention to "kill" someone (that happens only in movies where contract killers come on the road). Similarly, no sane pedestrian would come on the road to commit suicide (that too happens in movies... "marne ke liye meri hi gadi mili thi kya" ).

I am just trying to put another perspective where bigger/faster vehicle is always considered at the wrong side of the mishap...accident ?? I am not trying to justify or blame a single side for this accident atleast.

I had been in a similar situation on a highway - I was driving on the rightmost lane (speed around ~80 Kmph - it would be called as fast if a person is met with accident, and normal otherwise - and by law as well). A lady started walking on the road from the road divider and barely 10-20 feet away from my car. She would not "look & stop" inspite of multiple honking - may be too scared or too dumb to look at the oncoming traffic.
There is very limited scope to apply brakes without ending up in a rather bigger mess (esp. when other fast moving vehicles are cruising behind your tail). I am sure with these kind of mindset, the driver is always at fault.
Luckily I was able to swirl past her by few feet and the Innova driver behind my car gave good "knowledge" to the lady to survive in India.

In short - every single individual is responsible for his/her safety on roads - anywhere in the world - or for that matter any place (be it road or mountain trail) in the world.

+1 Completely agree.

Motorists, as a rule, should give way to pedestrians. The problem occurs when they are expected to give way to a pedestrians stupidity which sometimes is close to impossible. In some cases we cannot absolve a pedestrian of all blame just because he is a pedestrian. In a clash between a motorist, a pedestrian and pedestrian stupidity, the only thing that escapes easily without damage is the stupidity. The pedestrian comes out the worst.
Distracted pedestrians literally walking into vehicles don't give time to exercise their right if way.
Here, the biker was clearly breaking the law as he appears to be going over acceptable speed limit. The pedestrian didn't show enough defensive walking skills - remember the discussions in this very same thread about defensive driving skills.
What pedestrians in India need to realise in India is that if they forcibly and stupidly keep exercising their right of way indiscriminately, it is they who suffer the most. You can't be in a coffin and say, " I was running across the highway because I always have right of way and the car didn't respect this." Too late.
With great power comes great responsibility. Right of way is a great power. If it is coupled with common sense, that's good. If it is coupled with stupidity and arrogance, one may not be able to discuss what happened in this thread, but face to face with his Maker.
I must reiterate that in this video both bikes were primarily at fault and the lack of proper infrastructure/civic sense contributed significantly to the end result. Unfortunately, as always, the pedestrian suffered the most.

https://youtu.be/hyPNO8KyTr0

^(CCTV footage of this accident)
A mother and her daughter died when a truck hit their motorcycle when they were trying to cross a highway near Erode, Tamilnadu.
RIP.

The mother was careless in crossing the highway. She should have looked far right before starting to cross, spotted the lorry and aborted crossing.

She crossed the road hidden behind the school van. Their scooter was in the blind spot for the truck and when they were in the truck driver's view, there was no time to react.

Ideally they should have waited for the van to cross the road and crossed without being in blind spot.
In Indian roads, whenever I encounter such blind spots, I honk in anticipation of someone to come from it and slow down in preparation to brake suddenly if needed.

"Honking" or "making noise" (as in India) wont help here. Stop and wait, let go, look left, look right and then pass.

She did absolutely horrible things.
Crossed the road in the shadow region of the bus and came into the way of the lorry from a blind spot.
Had she succeeded in crossing, she was actually trying to get onto the other side of the road in WRONG direction :Frustrati:Frustrati

Witnessed a minor accident day before yesterday.

A swift was trying to get out of a street to reach the opposite lane of a two lane road, the lane in which I was driving too. Vehicles were passing along both the lanes, so he kept on waiting. Almost all the vehicles in the lane near the street passed by, except a two wheeler. There was some 3-4 vehicles' gap in front of me. The driver of the swift didn't take notice of the two wheeler. I believe the driver of the swift would have been obstructed by the A-pillar. He moved slowly and hit the two wheeler. The man in the two wheeler fell down and the driver stopped the car. Some people nearby came to help the man. I too parked my car and tried to cross the road to help the man, but vehicles kept on passing, so I could not cross the road. I crossed the road after some seconds, by that time other people had lifted the man. Luckily, nothing had happened to the man.