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Deception is the key factor here. If you are driving in a light automobile, you will never notice the gradient. But loaded vehicles, it is a different story. They have to climb up/ drive down a steep gradient over a distance of 2-3KM with multiple S bends.

In ghat roads normally drivers will be careful, but here the topography does not warn you about the gradient.

The vehicle picks up or loses speed quite fast. By the time the heavy truck reaches the bridge 2Km down, the brakes might have lost all the bite.

Almost every accident here is created by a truck. That indicates something.

It's an Alto versus a "pickup truck" as stated in the news here. The "pickup truck" is most likely an Eicher truck partly seen in the second image of the newsclipping. The persons in the Alto who were Maharashtra forest department officials, were returning after attending a marriage function. The collision impacted the tiny Alto fully, crushing it as seen in the image.Two of the car occupants were killed, while two others were injured. This happened on the Ramtek/Mansar - Tumsar connector road which is an offshoot from the National Highway #44, that touches Ramtek/Mansar.

Look carefully, and you can see the white pick up truck lying on it's side on the right side of this second image. The Eicher truck has just stopped, or was driving past the scene, in the background.

Yes, deception is the right word. There are many supernatural theories going around in that area. Local channels have covered it in length and breadth. At least now there's 4 way lane, back in those days when we did not have national highways like this. It was a single carriageway and accidents were not new as well in this section of the road. Accidents would block the road for hours when they used to happen here. I remember one particular incident in the past, because of an accident which involved a truck and the traffic piled up on both sides. Many students were stranded and couldn't reach their specific engineering entrance exam centers in Dharmapuri and Salem. This happed a couple of decades back. There is a public announcement system at the thoppur toll gate communicating to drivers in Tamil, English, and Hindi, cautioning them about the accident-prone nature of the ghat section and specifically advising truckers to drive in 2nd gear. But the accidents keeps happening. I hope the NHAI expedites the proposed flyover project (reference: https://www.newindianexpress.com/sta...d-2539514.html).

My father's driver has been with us for around 12 years now. He started his driving career on a JCB (which required specialised training) and then quickly jumped to driving an ambulance in Tiruvannamalai district (which required zero training, they just checked if he had an active driver's licence and that was it).

He started driving an ambulance at the age of 19 and was tired of the stress and low pay by the age of 21. When he came to us to drive, he used to drive like an absolute maniac. It took several years of patient coaching from my father to make him a sane driver, and now he can handle any automobile or road situation with ease and composure.

I chatted with him on this today and I completely agree that: 1. Many youths apply to drive ambulances without any form of special training. 2. Almost all of them have this urge to switch on the siren and just blast through traffic, though not everybody acts on that urge without reason to.

Yes it has turned turtle. Could be a Bolero possibly.

Another accident at Thoppur Ghats yesterday. Something needs to be done urgently on that stretch given the high volume of traffic.

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/stor...296-2024-01-25

It is the same one being discussed since couple of days here and https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/road-...t-salem-3.html .

It happened on 24th afternoon / evening.

Am i not seeing clearly or is the car unregistered?

It looks like the pre facelift. So must be an old one. Must be blurred due to poor resolution. Or there's no rear plates!

Meanwhile, here's the link to the actual CCTV footage of the thoppur accident a couple of days ago. A few youngsters saved 3 children's lives from the unfortunate car stuck between those 3 trucks. It took a few minutes for the fire to spread. Unfortunately it was still too quick to save those adults from the car. Had there been fire extinguishers in all commercial vehicles maybe they could've put out the fire before it started..


https://youtu.be/_TvViNexRtU?si=QmnBld8Y6WRr5rOz

Question: I was re looking at the video, did the small car going out of control trigger the accidents ? or is it just the video deceiving me ?

This stretch of road have had its share of ghastly accidents but not sure what can be the best solution to reduce them. Better design of roads, defensive and safe driving and what not..

Correct, I think the white car is the culprit in this tragedy. The white car hits the truck from behind, the truck might have been coasting in Neutral for obvious reasons that led to it accelerating and lunging forward. Way too unsafe distance between each vehicle also contributed to the tragedy. Kudos to those who dared to come forward and pull the kids out of it.

Now we have a new villian! what was the role of the small car between these 2 trucks - it is very very difficult to make out, can anyone throw some thoughts here?



I can guarantee you no trucker would ever do that in Thoppur ghat, fast yes, neutral never. It is just not possible and their brakes would cook in less than 2kms of the entire main ghat section.

Ps - I may have used this ghat at least 50 times a year in my life, I know this place since 80s from the days of it being a 15-20 foot narrow mountain pass, like what you see in the Leh-Ladhak travelogues.

Thanks for sharing this, things are a lot clearer now.

Seems like truck was not at fault at all!

The small car is definitely zig-zagging between the trucks and tries to squeeze between the two trucks.

I suspect that the car may have failed on this for obvious reasons and the first crash happens. This would have resulted in the chain reaction of trucks colliding into each other.

Replaying first 3-4 seconds on loop, to me it looks like the 3rd truck(rearmost one with darker tarpaulin) hits the white car first, car moves towards left (right from camera POV) because of rear impact and driver loses control or tries to overcorrect resulting in car swerwing right again and coming between the two trucks.

Having video of 3-4 seconds before the start of above video would have helped a lot.