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-   -   Accidents in India | Pics & Videos (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/road-safety/109249-accidents-india-pics-videos-2737.html)

Yes, one of the vehicles apparently slowed down for these nasty namesake filled rumblers, and that caused the pileup.

This stretch has lots of ups and downs, so vehicles tend to accelerate when they see an upward stretch and try to keep momentum.

Since they did namesake filling after multiple complaints and accidents, in many spots it has already eroded due to heavy vehicles plying and rains. You can see how they were "filling" these up from one of the pics I have posted on the other thread.

If you watch the video, you will notice that the biker was going in the correct lane initially but switched lanes and went on the wrong side after seeing the traffic ahead.
This wasn’t his first Tango riding on the wrong side. Hopefully it will be his last.

Yes. As a practice on the road, I give a quick glance in my rear view mirror, every 10-15 seconds. That's 4-6 glances per minute..

So, technically I am aware of all the vehicles behind me, the speed they are maintaining or approaching as well as the vehicles and road in front of me.

At a rumbler or hump, if I see a vehicle very close behind me, appearing to be in a hurry , I wouldn't slow down, but continue with the same speed over the rumbler / hump and then as quickly as possible, allow the vehicle to pass me.

If there's no vehicle behind me, then I will slow down at rumblers and take it slow.

So, my slowing down or not at rumblers / hump depends upon how close and aggressive the car behind me is or if there's no one behind me. One needs to read the behaviour or mindset of the car driver behind me in Quick time by the way that car is moving.

If one is oblivious to the speed of the vehicles behind him/her, then sometimes unfortunate accidents happen..

Then inspite of being so careful, how can I get involved in a pile up?

Simple, the car in front of me slowed down suddenly, I slow down too, and the car behind me doesn't slow down quick enough and rams into the back of my car. Now, even with doing everything right, I am a victim of accident.

Pile ups happen for this reason. Out of the 15 vehicles involved, there would be many who would have braked in time, but the following vehicle didn't brake in time and rammed into the slowing car. So, out of 15 vehicles, even 4 or 5 vehicles who didn't brake and stop in time is enough to cause the 15 vehicle pile up.

Then the question comes why don't the cars maintain some distance/ gap between each other? In India, if there's a 2 car length safety gap between two cars, then there's always someone who will overtake you and occupy that gap. Drivers in India don't allow for any decent safety gap between 2 vehicles. They want every inch to be occupied. So the safe gap distance maintaining doesn't work practically in India.

In Europe or USA, the car drivers diligently maintain 1 car or 2 car length distance on highways and no one squeezes in between (even that happens sometimes, but it's an exception). In India, even an inch of road is not spared. In Europe and USA, pile-up happens due to the high speeds while in India it's high speed and not maintaining sufficient gap between the two vehicles.

People are screwed up, period. That's the bottomline, if you ask me.

Let's take another common occurrence - people who drive on the wrong side of the road wilfully are the ones who have the loudest voices when an accident happens or when law-abiding citizens question them. Passers-by also support the guy driving/riding on the wrong side these days.

Indians have lost all sense of what's right and what's wrong. And so it follows that our media, which is supposed to hold a mirror to the state of a society, also reports nonsense.

It seems to be the downhill section looking at the pattern of leaked fluids on the road and there's also a stone kept before the wheels of one of the trucks. There is a small possibility that the bus at the back started the chain of events. Some of the vehicles were perhaps coasting. We will never know.

I feel it is best to drive on the left lane in such sections. Leave a 3 second gap to the truck/ vehicle, who's ahead of us. If a truck or some other vehicle at the back gets restless let them overtake on the right and fill the gap. Leave a 3 second gap again.

https://twitter.com/MudithLearns/sta...24277461868932

Just to be clear it is not 1 or 2 car lengths it is the 2 sec rule (at the minimum) which ensures following distance to be proportional to the speed --- if you double your speed you double the following distance. Strictly speaking even this is not really sufficient. It should be following time (not distance as in 2 sec rule) proportional to the speed which means distance proportional to the square of the distance. i.e. you double the speed increase the distance 4 times.

I agree. That's what we do when we ride the motorcycle. The 2 second rule (or counting 1001, 1002).

These things has to get into muscle memory, so that we do it without real conscious effort and gets imbibed in the riding habit..

Recently, a relative of mine was involved in an accident. My relative was driving his SUV on a national highway, well under speed limit too and a 75+ year old man without a helmet or anything, decided to suddenly change lanes from extreme left to the right. My relative was already towards the right lane and tried as much as he could to avoid a collision, but the old man ended up hitting the left mirror and side of the car, and eventually died after a few hours in the hospital. My relative had immediately called an ambulance and sent him to a nearby hospital and tried contacting the police. But due to no reply, he drove the car to the nearest police station and informed the incident. Then he helped the family shift the patient to a higher centre, took care of all the bills out of goodwill and everything, but the man didn’t survive. Then the old man’s family were demanding compensation, an absurd amount initially , but later came to an agreement and were paid too in the presence of the police . The police who weren’t even in the scene, have written “Rash and Negligent driving and over speeding” in the FIR. When questioned about that , they replied it is to help the victim get the insurance money making it seem as the SUV’s fault. Now the lawyers have told my relative that there will be customary process in the courts and nothing to be worried regarding any imprisonment or fine. The case is filed under Section 304(A) if I’m not wrong. But I am very scared and skeptical for him. Please give your insights on this.

Happened in Palghat. Auto driver suffered injuries as per the report. What a scary scene!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQdNBHh5kJQ

Source - YouTube

Looks like the auto was there to save the biker and his kid, the truck was heading straight for them!

This is where a dashcam + footage would have your back

This is why Indian laws are broken beyond repair. Almost all lawyers will tell you (and to some extent rightly so) to just accept the fault and move on. If you accept then you end up paying some fine (Rs 2000 if I recall correctly for a similar, though not fatal, case that happened to my in-laws). Otherwise you sacrifice your car to the MVD gods resulting in the car being in their custody for as long as the case goes on.

At some point of time they will summon your relative and ask whether he accepts his fault. One can dispute it (the version cooked up by the police) and "enjoy" all the tamasha but as far as I understand (disclaimer: I am not a lawyer) the general norm is to accept it, pay the fine and save your car.

If one thinks about this there are so many ways in which this and similar cases are wrong.

1. To start with the victim is dead. It clearly cannot get worse that this for any one.

2. Your relative's survival trauma together with his sympathy towards the victim is resulting in him pleading guilty for a crime he probably did not commit. The end result of all this is that unwittingly he is abetting a insurance fraud.

3. The police is being the good and the bad cop at the same time; making sure that the victim gets insurance money by not doing their duty, and

4. The lawyers make some money in this process

5. And finally our roads remain as dangerous and crazy as before; I am sure that the none of the curious onlookers would have learned a lesson by witnessing this accident. They will continue to do this or even worse stunts the next time they ride/drive.

No wonder India is a banana republic, at least our roads are. The best your relative can do is to get a good lawyer and follow his advice. I really feel bad about this.

The lorry in the front seems to be towing another lorry and was driven fast for the slippery condition. The auto was also speeding with all the load on the carrier, seems to be overtaking another vehicle. Lorry tries to brake, but the "load" behind doesnt stop and pits from behind. The driver tries to steer left, (as seen at 00:19) but has no control. The driver literally "lost control" here!

Seems more like the truck behind the tipper lost control and was skidding along and collected the tipper and make it loose control as well.

You’ve explained it very well. The victim’s side is from the economically weaker section and they are seeing this as a chance to make some money. But here in our family, with all due respect to the deceased, this is consuming our days. To prevent this incident from happening , my relative should’ve left for his destination 5 minutes late, or his only other option is to jump the divider into oncoming traffic and risk his life because a 70+ year old, with clearly no license is on a moped on the highway, crossing to the right lane like he’s doing a 90 degree turn. Has anyone else been in a similar situation? I’m looking for advice. Our whole family was scared to drive on the highway for months, because no one dreamt of this happening when you’re ACTUALLY under speed limit and driving mindfully.