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Does this hold true even in the case of an illegal lane change (by the guy in front) and then braking?

I ask because there are times like when a scooter guy squeezed between me and the divider, moved in front of me as soon as his mud-flap cleared my bumper, and then braked hard because his hat (wasn't wearing a helmet) flew off and bounced off my windscreen.

The guy and his scooter proceeded (separately) a short distance down the road, but were fortunately unharmed. I didn't stop beyond telling him what I thought of his stunt.

No. It's the responsibility of the person changing the lane to make sure that there's adequate space between him/her and the following vehicle. But then "adequate space" becomes debatable here.

If he is already in front, legally yes (assuming that it would be difficult for you to produce proof for his lane change), always guy in front claims innocence.

Debatable, if you have camera's mounted all around vehicle which keeps track of these stunt-man, heroes on road which you can provide after accident!. Otherwise by nature you will be blamed for having two more wheels than him! *Sigh*

Disagree with that. If he/she is not in front then it would be a case of side-swiping. Legally too, the the change is illegal but the offender is likely to get away with it because of lack of proof. Then in practice the bigger vehicle is at fault.

^^^

What are you disagreeing about? I made it clear in my reply, "if he is front", he will always claim innocence.

If he not in front anyway its the case of side-sweeping. But then again, he will claim that you crossed his path intention of killing! Ha ha I love my country!

Though recent judgment in Delihi high court made it clear that, in case of accident due to stunt (Read crossing the road, illegal lane change etc), tailing car owner shouldn't be held responsible for the accident!

When I was living in the Arab part of the world, I've seen a better implementation of the "Guy changes lane, but the guy behind is at fault rule".

Assuming the road is split into 3 lanes. The outermost lane being the fastest, and the innermost being the slowest. If somebody shifts a lane from one of the outer (faster) tracks into the inner (slower) tracks and he gets hit, it is always the fault of the person who shifted lanes.

Conversely, if a person in a slower lane is moving into the outer (faster) lane and if he gets hit, then it is always the fault of the person in the outer lane (since the expectation is that the faster lane will be cautious and slow slightly when they see the lane change indicator).

However, big catch 22 in implementing this rule in Bangalore at least - a 3 lane is actually a five lane (spaces in between the lanes seem to be dedicated to bikers who want to scratch cars), secondly there is no lane speed guidelines and thirdly, we haven't even heard of the term "lane discipline".

Far be it for me to blame the populace without accepting my share of blame as well, but at least in Bangalore, maintaining lane discipline is a sure-fire way to hate humanity and probably get rear-ended at some point... :Frustrati

Apologies, I didn't realize certain words that's commonly used in normal speech is considered as foul / abusive language here. Ah well, on the upside, I learned something new today.

Gents,

I might have mentioned my younger brother's proclivity to total my cars. Here are some pictures when it actually wasn't his fault. My Santro (brother driving) was stopped at a signal on-route to electronics city.

Apparently some rich kid had just got his new Innova and was ripping up the roads. At the last moment, I guess he floors the brake, but his car skids and rams into my car (at the rear right corner) at some considerable speed.







The force of the impact makes my car ram into a swift which is parked directly in front of my car, and therein throws it to the side.





Forgot to mention this in my earlier post. The reason why I love the Santro so much is - no one inside the car got hurt. Check out the interior pic...



No matter what anyone says, I would wholeheartedly recommend the Santro to anybody as a first car. It takes care of you, and without the fancy electronics that drive our Mercedes/BMW crowd. It's simple, but sometimes in simplicity you find genius.

Glad to hear no one was hurt. Looks pretty bad.

Out of curiosity, did your brother had hand-break on when the Innova rear-ended you? I know it's probably not common practice to use hand-breaks at long traffic signals, but I was trained to do that by my driving instructor, as in a scenario like this, when someone rear-ends you, the impact could throw the driver off balance and he/she might releasing the break pedal, which could in turn cause more issues with your car running into other cars, or worse, pedestrians. Just curious, that's all. Thanks.

Hmmm...interesting. I can see how that might help. I don't think the hand-brake was set. We usually just brake through the signal...unless it's one of those 90-120 second signals, where we pull the hand-brake.

Thanks for the info Positron. I will follow this.

Its advised not to put the handbrakes on traffic lights. Even if someone bangs from behind, the hit will get minimized if you are not in handbrakes.

Are you sure about this ShineShine? What if there was someone walking across the road in front of you? Would you not just crash into them? Not sure what the law is in India, but if you are stopping at traffic lights, you are advised to engage hand-breaks here in Europe. If you didn't, you would fail your driving license test - so it's definitely the rule here.

Disagree on this

My British teaching was the same as Positron says. In fact, one instructor told me that you could be held liable for the damage to the car in front of you if you had not engaged handbrake.

I usually do anyway, because I like to follow the advice they used to put on the old Indian red signal lights: Relax.

Handbrake on. Gear in neutral. Feet off all pedals and take it easy until the lights change.

I used to ... but I keep forgetting to release the handbrake and try to drag my car forward so many times now I've given up engaging the lever except when parking. :Frustrati

--Ragul

Both of you are correct on the context. But I thought it like, a hard impact would anyway push the cars and would severely damage it. So why would make it worse by pulling handbrake. But I really didn't think on the point 'someone walking across the road in front of you' stupid: