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The video shows the car jumping the median at high speed. Whatever news report you read is plain wrong, since there's a clear video evidence of what happened.

+1.

In fact, there is no gap in the median. The maroon car jumped the median at high speed and didn't slow down even after entering the opposite lane. This case looks DUI to me than a tyre burst.

My observations on this incident;
1. Looks like the White XL6 had a chance to avoid the collision, by steering slightly to the right (instead of left).
2. All the 3 casualties are surprisingly from the XL6, which is equipped with 4 Airbags and I could see 3 of the airbags deployed, which means the front seat passengers were wearing the seat belts, even as the cabin looks intact, still could not avoid the causalities.
3. On the other hand, the Ertiga equally of the same age (say less than 1.5 years) with just two airbags could say the lives of 7 travelling in it.

Anyone can shed light on this survival dynamics, given both the vehicles are from the same stable, with the same underlying machine and metal, and obviously of almost same age (new vehicles) and of almost same speed and a straight head-one collision, still the outcomes were different. (Except that there were 4 people in XL6 and 7 in Ertiga)

Ideally there should be systematic study to identify factors that aid in tyre bursts and then eliminate those. As Indian road infrastructure is improving by leaps and bounds, speed will increase making this factor more so important.

One thing that comes quickly to mind is the unscientific use of reflector studs on high speed highways and expressways. Poor quality tyres running over these studs at high speed will only deteriorate the situation.

Folks argue that it's for improving night visibility etc, but it's still illogical to have so many such studs placed on roads. These days the placements are in such a way to ensure tires do run over them for sure.

What can be done to avoid this, concrete medians?

I think I might have experienced this first hand, on the single lane road between Ulundurpet and Salem, where they have kept plastic lane dividers at some places. There are a few places where plastic dividers have been removed, but the studs are exposed. I suspect I might have gone over one of those studs at some particular angle and speed to cause a puncture (I am not sure of it could be called a tyre burst). Why I would not call it a tyre burst is because, the actual puncturing event (sound) happened on a straight empty stretch of road on the 4 lane divided portion. I am not sure if there was a single lane just before that point though.

I heard a loud pop sound and some squealing/screeching kind of sound and stopped immediately on the shoulder. I did not feel the car go out of control even though something felt amiss. Rear left tyre was completely flat. After replacing the spare wheel, noticed a hole of around 8-10 mm diameter on the 4.5 year old Michelin energy tyre.

Unfortunately, nothing to do with the vehicle or the quality of the metal piece. Its plain physics. In such head-on collisions, if passengers sitting in the rear are not buckled, they will become a projectile and injure/hurt/kill the passengers in front, even if the front passengers are belted and airbags are deployed.

A massive fire erupted on a flyover in Ludhiana after an oil tanker toppled after hitting a divider. In the link, in the 3rd video you can see how oil is gushing out of the tanker and suddenly it catches fire.

Link

Head-On Collision Between 2 Cars In Andhra Leaves 3 Dead

According to the police officials, the accident occurred when a car lost control, hit the divider and collided with another car that was coming from the opposite direction.

https://www.ndtv.com/video/news/news...-3-dead-750546

You missed one crucial factor. The approach to the impact. One was cruising on the highway before collision whereas as the other one too was, but jumped over the divider before colliding. So while the occupants of the white one had no anticipation for an impact, the occupants of the other one were shaken up when it hit the divider and must be prepared to brace for a second impact which was with the car. They must be prepared, must have held tightly, must have dodged or braced. Just a speculation, could be totally wrong. You never know, this is gruesome.

This type of accident is the most worrisome as you have no control on it (w.r.t the white car). The only way to not get into this is to drive in moderate speed and always think of an escape plan in the event of any such situations.

Why didn't they share the visuals atleast starting a few seconds earlier. That would have cleared a lot of doubts on what lead to the car jump the divider.

Fuel tanker met with accident and eventually caught on fire, in Punjab.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjODxBPjK4o

Horrific, to say the least.

Just saw the first 15 seconds, I couldn't muster the courage to watch the whole video.

Those 3 guys around the tanker were engulfed in flames within a matter of seconds. Om Shanti to the departed soul :crying

Kind of a 'classic' head on collision between two exactly same vehicles. Both were at roughly similar speed (the white car had panic braked and reduced speed just before impact) and suffered what looks like an '80% offset' head on collision (driver side lesser impact).

What transpired is a validation of +2 physics, in the symmetry of the result when two objects with similar mass and similar velocity collide head on :
- both jumped roughly same amount before coming to stop
- both 'rotated' roughly same amount before coming to stop
- both 'absorbed' similar amount of crash energy
- both came to a stop not far from impact point (ie, no bouncing back or ploughing ahead)

More....

Driving on the shoulder
Changing multiple lanes in one go

Damn, just saw the video again, going per the media reports, this family was very very very lucky :Shockked::Shockked: