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Isn't that a bit too harsh on the driver? Lets hear his side of the story, investigate. Sadly; I don't think there will be an opportunity for it as these drivers are beaten up and thrown in jail. If the driver is lucky, someone will bail or bribe him out and will be back in the seat of a truck again.

That looks like a fairly modern truck. There should be ways to dig into the ecu, telematics and find out if it really did loose brakes or was there loss in brake pressure.

Even if the driver ends up being responsible, I'd question our licensing system. I'd start by checking how that driver gained his truck drivers license or how that truck was certified fit to be on the road. You can't blame the driver for lack of maintenance. The owner or logistics company needs to be held responsible as well.

When you have someone behind the wheel of a truck like that, I assume you need to have the skills to drive one. I don't think our licensing cares much for such skills. You combine this with someone who is probably paid a pittance to do his job, drives 15 hours a day at a minimum, you're going to end up with crashes like this. A lot needs to change.

That's one scary crash. RIP to those who departed.

For those of you who haven't heard/seen a "Runaway Truck ramp" please check this out.

https://www.carscoops.com/2020/08/ru...from-disaster/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5KgKebgkwk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7djN6bxHcU

I don't know what caused this particular crash but I can confirm how the brakes lose their effectiveness after a couple of minutes of spirited driving in the hills and that's for a car! We take breaks in-between our runs to let the brakes cool down. With heavily loaded trucks it's not the speed but the weight they need to hold back that stresses out the brakes.

I hope someday in the future, India will eventually have Runaway truck ramps.

P.S:

1. Shame on the meme maker and anyone who's forwarding a meme with the title "Brand new KIA Sonet accident in Thoppur". It's wrong to try and peddle a narrative that a KIA crumpled like a cola can. The poor car didn't stand a chance in front of the asteroid hurtling towards it and no car could have survived the hit.
2. What could BHPians do? Nothing to escape an accident like this BUT please be patient with similar trucks on uphill/downhill sections of roads. Let them safely pass through the section. Avoid manoeuvres that'll cause the trucks to lose their momentum uphill or make them suddenly use their brakes downhill. Stay clear of these giants and give them enough space to move around.

I am a regular and have been driving through this stretch for last 20 years. This steep downhill stretch, 4-5 years ago had plenty of speed breakers along with mobile barricades arranged in a zig-zag fashion. Though it slowed down traffic, it resulted in lot of vehicles getting rear ended. It was very common to see people banging onto the vehicle in front as they carry too much speed and don't maintain enough distance. I myself have witnessed such crashes taking place right in front of me. After they widened this road, they opted for the present set up by removing all speed breakers, presumably to reduce rear end collisions, it now has only rumble strips and warnings. But all of that wouldn't have prevented these sort of accidents.

RSR is bang on here. Couple of curves are really deceptive. Unless your car is extremely good on dynamics and has very good tyres, there isn't much room to do any mid course correction if one is carrying a higher speed into these curves, such is the momentum owing to steepness of the place. Tall SUV's are extremely vulnerable. My friend had nearly lost control and got into a toppling situation of his Scorpio many years back while negotiating one of the curves. I feel the banking of curve isn't that great at couple of curves especially two of the left handers.

Few steps I take when passing through this stretch.

* Drive downhill in 3rd gear and not more than 50-55 kmph.
* Remain highly alert while negotiating those curves.
* Always allow speeding guys behind you pass ahead.
* At times, even music is put on mute.
* Do all of this at a higher degree if it's raining.

It's always frustrating to see people still speeding on this stretch despite all sorts of warnings. Things get even more trickier when it rains, especially the first rains after a long gap.

RIP to the departed souls. The footage was bit traumatic to watch. I'll surely be jittery the next time I pass through this place, due in a week's time.

This is brilliant. It is similar to the catch sidings we have on our railways.

Even if its a levelled out mud road as an off ramp, will solve the problem or give these truckers an escape route. Lane markers and some instructions to our truck drivers is all that is needed.

I am unable to precisely recollect the name or the stretch of one of the newly developing Highways in India but when I was watching construction updates including few drone shots, a particular stretch did have Runaway ramp (as the caption also confirmed) and I was delighted that the Road designers have some serious business when it comes to safety now.

We are not there yet and have a long way to go but I was glad to notice that this crucial safety aspect was taken into consideration while building this highway.

Will try to get this video that I watched many months before.

In India, we have something called 'runaway drivers'. It's been in practice much before runaway ramps came into existence. The only difference is the driver saves himself instead of saving others.

On a serious note, I think this is the only thing left to do in Thoppur ghats since the authorities have done quite a bit in making drivers understand how dangerous the downhill is. But even with an off ramp, drivers would jump out in most situations. In this case, the driver rammed into the cars knowing that he would be saved since the cars acted as a cushion for the truck which is why the truck has minimal damage. If he had rammed into the truck on the right lane or swerved off the road, he would have lost his life. He didn't have a chance to jump out either as there was a bus on his right and his speed was high.

Just like someone mentioned in an earlier post, this ghat is not like the usual ones which has hairpin bends and is visually steep, which is the main cause of accidents here.

Here you go. I tried to recollect whether this was the Mumbai - Goa highway or any other. Then I recollected that it was from Sangamner on the Pune Nashik Highway since few sections on this are really fast, lot of long bends and then inclines and gradients.


Video Courtesy: Respective uploader on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9syGxK3JFo

Although this may not be the best of the ramps we have come across, I appreciate the fact that the dangers lurking around such steep and fast inclines weren't ignored and they came up with such escape ramp(s) on an Indian highway.

In general, even the warning signs and placement of rumblers have been good as you will notice this in the video.

Poor Sonet occupants from a routine drive to such a tragic accident for no fault of theirs. Every time there is sudden braking or unusual stops on Highway/city roads, I always have an eye on the rear view mirror (Also turn on the Hazard lights). I have been a part of a pile up only difference being the car that rear ended me was a Tavera (Thank God). Attaching pics of the same.

I fear bumper to bumper traffic on large bridges where you can feel the entire bridge shaking (by design) and driving under metro construction work.

From the videos I don't see any attempt by the truck driver to brake or avoid the cars, must be distracted.

There have been escape lanes on some British steep-hill roads for as long as I can remember --- fifty-plus years. Usually sand.

Yes of course. Don't rub the fifty-plus years part since some may take offense. :)

clap:Thanks for sharing. I never thought these things existed in India.

This X times better than not having one at all. Would anyone know if these are stipulated by the National Highways Department in recent times?

You started flicking between Hi and low as you should after this close call, I'm scared of drivers who both use low only and miss things, and high only and blind on coming drivers. You have to use high, and flip to low when you have an oncoming vehicle approach you, and back to high just before crossing.
When you flick to low most decent oncoming CV drivers usually do the same.

Rahul

A untrained driver relying on his brakes instead of exhaust brake and gears to control speed. Exhaust brakes are actually valves up stream of the turbo which block exhaust and make the engine retard, all good drivers use them to decelerate for normal highway driving keeping the brakes cold for emergencies. Drivers who have recently shifted from smaller trucks to larger ones rely on brakes. Truck is a Bharat Benz 5530, Officially a 55 ton 300bhp vehicle, the recently mandated power increase from 230 Bhp to 300 Bhp for 55 tonnes has made drivers speed demons.

Rahul

The only escape ramp that I have seen in the region around Pune that I frequent is in the Chandanapuri ghat between Pune and Nashik.
Even that is of no use as you often see cars and bikes parked at it's approach with people stopped for photos.
Lastly a truck driver who doesn't know what an escape ramp is will try to go barrier scraping.

Rahul

Yup! I saw one of these on our drive from Denver to Telluride/Aspen. The ramp we passed looked too steep uphill and loose gravel-filled. The gravel can arrest the speed and bring a mighty semi to a dead stop before it reaches the top. The driver just needs to hold the steering straight. Any directional changes may topple the truck.

We should have such runaway-ramps here, given how poorly maintained our long-haul trucks are. I see them screaming their guts out on their way up a gradient but as soon as they top the crest, they start rolling down like crazy, aided by gravity. Which is when I don't want to be in their path. There is no way they can stop even if they wanted to. The best time to overtake them is when they are struggling uphill.

Hindsight is always very clear but NHAI marshals should have had staff warning drivers well before that last curve. While the last straight section may look lengthy enough, it just wasn't enough to safely stop a speeding fully loaded 55 tonner.

As others have pointed out, this Thoppur Ghat (BLR to Salem direction) is lethal with a deceptively wide, well maintained road surface. The really experienced HCV drivers do not exceed 50 km/hr here, as they are using their massive engine braking in conjunction with judicious application of brakes. I just don't know what this heavily loaded semi-arc was doing at such speeds.

Brake burnout on downhill sections are the hidden killer globally, and especially in developing countries where safety awareness is significantly lower. Just see the number of accidents on the Kalhatti Ghats connecting Masinagudi with Ooty. There were so many that the road has been permanently one way (uphill only) now.

https://youtu.be/PjOMlB0Nqe4

A lovely drive BUT before the one-way system, I have personally smelt burning brakes throughout my drives downhill. Most drivers from the plains would be in high gears (4/5/6) and ride their brakes downhill. By the time they reach 70% down, their brakes would be more or less useless leading to terrible accidents.

The CCTV clips gave me shivers! This is the same stretch through which some of us drive very frequently. There’s absolutely nothing the other vehicles could have done, could they?

RIP to those poor souls.