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The only way to fix our unsafe roads is to make the driving license like a proverbial unicorn. It should be made so difficult to pass that people should flash it proudly. Case in point the Japanese driving license. My friend could never clear it in Japan. He cleared DL test in first go here.

True, I once slightly hit a dog which just jumped across the road. I braked instantly & I was happy that it was fine as it ran away but was surprised to see that part of the bumper had come out & also the fog light fitting broke away.

By the way, stray cattle seen on roads could weigh anywhere between 500-700 kg.

The Tiago has experienced an angled collision. But the crash is more of a head-on instead of a t-bone considering the longitudinal crush of the A-pillar and little to no lateral intrusion. The narrow overlap has also ensured that the cross member has probably been bypassed.
GNCAP rating does not matter here as GNCAP does not test for angled collisions that do not involve the cross members. Unfortunately, this is something no manufacturer clarifies when selling their "safe cars".
However, I believe that Tiago's driver died due to a lack of belt usage considering the position of the belt. The intrusion is not significant to reduce his survival space. An analysis of the injuries can only confirm this though.
A thing that is bugging me is that the damages on the Venue and Tiago don't seem to correlate. Is there another vehicle involved in this case that may have also hit the Tiago?

Can you provide a source for the 150kph speed? If it is a witness statement, I don't think it is reliable because "150 kph" is a standard quoted speed by passers-by and police when they see heavy damage on the vehicle. I am not saying that the XUV700 is not speeding but saying that it is above 150 kph without any source is hearsay.

Apart from financial burden, there is also this aspect of a legal/social burden. No matter who is the instigator of the crash, the charge sheet will be filed against the bus driver as he is in the "bigger vehicle". Considering the multiple fatalities the bus driver may even be looking at jail time.

I completely agree, sir. This also applies to Tata Motors. If the manufacturer starts promoting their vehicle as a "tank", drivers are going to drive it as a tank too. Manufacturers need to start giving the limitations of GNCAP ratings and their cars. We cannot expect the standard car buyer to be well versed in the nitty-gritty of crash tests. This practice is a double-edged sword that will hurt the manufacturers down the line.

This looks like a standard head-on underride in which the car has gone under the truck. Quite hard to say the exact collision angle as someone has taken the car to the cleaners during extrication. The damage that we see is both collision+extrication damage. It is quite hard to say that the bus was also at a high speed without inspecting the scene.

Can you share the source of a large number of XUV700 crashes? It's certainly intriguing that the XUV700 has a higher crash rate compared to other cars.
If true, I am not sure if power is the only reason behind the high crash rate of the XUV700. There could be other reasons such as driver age group, driving experience, publicly available data (not all crashes are reported), car type, car features (luxury vehicles usually have more finely tuned safety features such as ESP, FCW), etc. Hard to make any causation without data.

Agreed that ADAS cannot be blamed if there is no ADAS in the vehicle. However, we cannot say for certain that ADAS would have helped here without understanding what has happened. Features such as AEB have limitations of visibility range, travel speeds, TTC threshold etc. The same goes for ESPs.

I agree with you. I want to add an essential point for everyone. Many of you who are familiar with Physics and Kinematics, in particular, might know this. But for others:

The force of a crash increases with speed in a SQUARE law. That simply means, a crash at a speed of 100kmph is more than double in impact when compared to the same crash at a speed of 70kmph. We should always keep this basic rule in mind, especially when increasing our speeds above 80kmph !!

May departed souls rest in peace.

This incidence proved there is no safe car. No tech will save you if you are fool to achieve that insane speed on Indian road.

How is EPS responding to that speed? I find it very twitchy compared to hydraulic power steering.

Wait, they were all DUI?

Driving at high speeds on our highways is one, this is taking it to a different level altogether! Man, I really feel sorry for the bus operator and the occupants.

Don’t want to comment on the vehicle, it’s safety ratings or tech. At those speeds, your guardian angel is the only saviour you’d have.

Sorry, but I found this comment highly inhumane and insensitive. What I am sure of all of them would have crossed legal speed limits an ample number of times. Few would have boasted about it in their friend's circle as well.

Coming to this accident, it's unfortunate and definitely avoidable. No car company crash test for 150Kmph.

Yes, this is AX5 Manual Transmission Vehicle.

I do road trips in my Tata Harrier often (30K kms/year is the average) and I see people ovetaking me at what can only be crazy speeds. Sometimes, in much smaller cars. I often wonder where do they find the courage to drive like that. I am often chided by some of my friends and relatives for driving "too slowly", while I am actually not slow. It's nuts. Drinking alcohol and driving is another menace across age groups.:Frustrati

Not an accident post, but related on a similar note.

I think many of the accidents we see here are due to 3 major reasons:
1) Over-confident drivers / untrained drivers
2) Law breakers (parking in no-parking, driving wrong side etc. etc.)
3) State of the road is really unpredictable and negligibly maintained.

If we try to find the Root Cause of the above reasons, we will come to 2 major ones:
i) Licenses have been given without any proper tests or training
ii) Law enforcement for errant drivers / accident causer is very poor
(There is a 3rd aspect of the road contractor doing shoddy work, but it is something which ties to poor law enforcement in the end.)

To usher improved safety of road users, we need 2 very HARSH actions from the Government:
a) DEMONESTISATION-style scrapping of existing licenses of road users, so that everyone has to retake their tests and licenses are given to only those who have studied and at the bare minimum, road-worthy.
b) Digital tools deployment to remove the human dependency of law enforcement. This will remove the human element and automatic booking of offences will reduce the incentive to be stupid on the road. This also takes care of some deviants who have received their licenses but aren't following the rules.

I will elaborate a little bit of the digital tools which I have in my mind.
A fastag style RFID chip in the chassis of the vehicle and road infrastructure to detect these tags (distance wise scanners), which can detect if the rules are being followed.
If the vehicle is hogging the overtaking lane at E-ways, it will generate a challan, if the vehicle is going in the wrong side for a long distance, it will generate a challan, if the vehicle is being parked illegally on the road, it will generate a challan; you get the idea.

Once we remove dependency of the humans, the incentive to adhere laws will increase significantly.
Hopefully, this will reduce the number of accidents and save lives.

PS: I know, none of these initiatives will be possible, so, you can consider this as a rant.

So totally true. Especially with our practice of having cows tied on in the divider.

I regularly do night driving between Bangalore and Coimbatore. I usually stick to 90-100kmph as that is the sweet spot for engine and one gets decent mileage too. Once when I was at this speed and approaching the bridge over Kaveri river at Bhavani, two dark coloured horses just bolted across the road after jumping out of the median - it was about 9pm and I barely avoided the tail of the second one even after emergency braking. Somehow I was able to stop the car on the corner where the bridge starts - another few meters I would have easily fallen into the river that was full at the time. I had to stop for some time to get my pulse normal - cow itself is scary at speed, but horse is an entirely different proposition.

Another instance, a cow got scared by a lorry horn and jumped straight on to my path along with the plant it was tied to. Car stopped within inches of it.

Since these two incidents, I always keep away from right most lane and don't go beyond a reasonable speed unless clear unobstructed wide view is available.

Nope that’s incorrect, two cars going 80km/hr each will result in a crash at 80 km/hr, it’s not added up as momentum is shared equally by both bodies. Same intensity as driving a single car into a non deformable stationary structure (like a wall) at 80 km/hr.

See here: https://youtu.be/r8E5dUnLmh4

Feel sorry for the occupants, but this is a live example of why NEVER to buy a Tata/Mahindra or any Indian vehicle. They falsify all their ratings and actually cut costs for the road going variants. That's not how a Pseudo SUV should be crushed. Tells me the metal and supports being used are either non existent or made of butter. I still fail to understand why people still buy them. Is your life cheaper than these vehicles? I guess NOT. I'd rather spend more to get a comparable or spend the same to get a lower variant of a German/Japanese vehicle but never ever am I ever gonna buy an Indian or a Korean vehicle. That's for sure!

If you want safety at 150 plus, you really are not left with anything except being encased in steel and rolled off.
Indian, Japanese, korean,german, or kree, nothing will be safe at that speed. Or rated, for that matter.

I have been trying to imagine how the engine got thrown out, one would expect the impact to push the engine through the firewall and into the cabin. Did it get pushed right through and out through the rear ?!:Shockked:

This gruesome accident goes to show that impact conditions in real world can be far removed from simulated crash tests.