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Or may be the driver was trying to overtake another vehicle and hence he was in middle of the road when the divider started.

According to reports, the driver is also seriously injured. The Hindu : States / Kerala : Malayalam actor Jagathy Sreekumar injured in accident

Well, finding humour out of a nasty crash… Nothing much to say!

This stretch between Kozhikode and Valanchery have quite a bit of killer dividers, and does create a bit of challenge in night driving.

I reside ~10km away from the accident spot and I travel through this stretch every day to my school, for the record. As I know this stretch inside out, let me describe the 1km stretch before the beginning of the median/divider :

There is a more-or-less steep downhill ~900m back, followed by an almost straight stretch, road then starts bending very slightly to left, then almost straight stretch for few metres and the median/divider begins.

The stretch I briefed above is one where the so called buses or rather multi-colored deadly boxes as I would love to call, drive on pedal-to-metal mode and achieve ~triple digit speeds :D

Yes, the divider used to have proper reflectors (an upright one with yellow reflectors on a black background) until a Tempo Traveler collided with the divide (the same way the Toyota Innova did) almost a month back. The dividers were painted recently in white and black colors, the road has proper white lines etc

PS: I'm not sure if they had put new reflectors in the recent past as I had not traveled through this stretch for almost two weeks.

Man! stupid kerala roads are narrow and full of these , thankfully many are less than 1/2 feet high and you might inadvertently end up straddling those on an overtaking manoeuvre, without much damage. I had a collision with a much smaller divider a year back when a old smoking truck suddenly belched out a cloud of black soot on a uphill section. Hit a foot high divider at about 40 kmph and car was thrown up.walked out expecting a smashed front end and miraculously found only the front right tyre torn off and rims bent, with little scratches to undersurface of bumper.thankfully no suspension damage due to virtue of FIAt built.
Jagathy is still critical but out of immediate danger it seems, but only time can tell.wishing him a safe recovery.

The latest news coming in tells that Jagathy is out of danger though has undergone some major surgeries.

Conflicting info regarding the cause of the accident, with some channels mentioning that the driver may have fallen asleep at the wheel while one stating that he was blinded by the headlight of an oncoming truck.

In any case, absolutely no skid marks.... cant imagine the forces at work when a 2 tonne vehicle is brought to rest from say 80km in a less than 2 seconds....

In any case, from the seriousness of the injuries, looks like someone was not wearing the seat belt, and vehicle does not seems to have had airbags. I just feel that the vehicle held pretty well and crumble zone did what it should do best...


On that note, did anyone notice a news clip which was showing this car being driven back out of that diver. Tried looking at it at least 2 times and there was no tow truck or anyone pushing but looked like it was being driven out in reverse gear. Should be a feat if the engine survived this crash. (I could be mistaken here though)

^ After that kind of impact the engine should have been dislodged for sure and you can see the state of the front wheels. No way it could have reversed on its own power. If it did, it's nothing short of a miracle!

Yes it worked out good for the occupants. If it was slightly off by a foot to left or right, the consequence would have been disastrous. Good chances that the Innova would have skidded, flipped and rolled at least 2 times. The same would have happened if the driver had swerved in the last second before impact.

Well, I seem to think that both were wearing seatbelts. The actor had injuries to the neck and abdomen suggesting the seat-belt injury under extreme forces. If someone was not buckled, he would have thrown out of the windshield in such an impact. The car was a taxi and did not seem to have airbags.

I saw the clips showing the towing attempt by a tow-truck and when it finally rolled back, the truck was not in scene, but may be way back. The front wheels were rolling, but seemed disconnected as the driveshaft could have snapped.

This is a case of the divider being invisible and car at high speed trying to overtake the vehicle in front and ramming the divider. Read about the accident in the papers today. I don't see any dangerous 'chicane' there unless you are doing F1 speeds on an ill lit road at daybreak with a droopy eyelid.

The Innova is rear wheel drive so the front wheels are not connected to the engine at all.

I think the occupants weren't wearing seatbelts. According to the description given by a malayalam newspaper, the actor was thrown around in the car following the accident, and the rescuers had a tough time taking him out. The dash of an Innova is fairly high enough - so I doubt if anyone would be thrown out even in case of an accident.

The Kuttipuram-Ramanattukara section has a lot of these unmarked dividers, which begin out of nowhere, sans any markings. Its one very dangerous section - especially on curves.

There was mention that the Innova was a taxi. I wonder why he was traveling in a taxi and not in own vehicle; I mean, actors usually prefer traveling in personal transport owing to safety and security. Also, if he had been sitting at the back (and buckled up) I guess he would have sustained lesser injuries.

Question: would that frontal impact have translated into the passenger cabin causing the multiple fractures?

Car & passenger moving forward at 60 kmph. Car comes to sudden dead stop. Without seat belt holding the passenger secure, the human continues to travel forward at 60 kmph untill the iron/steel framework of the cloth+1" layer of foam covered front seat or the hard PU dashboard stop him. Soft human tissue + fragile bones collide with the iron/PU structure and also with each other. Picture it in your mind's eye and do the math....

That is a given. What I was referring to was whether the cave-in that we see in the pictures could have crushed the footwell area.

Well the engine block + gearbox have moved into the firewall (seperating the engine bay from the footwell) and deformed the same for sure that is evident by the snapped front axle and the depth up to which the barrier has intruded in to the engine bay. So an educated guess would have to be a yes

Rohan,

There are two things we are confusing here:
- The peace of mind of a company car. You have waxed eloquent on that and I'm sure all of us agree. So let's leave that aside.
- How your driver drives. And how despite professing to not give a damn, you actually tried arguing on his behalf with police - which is rather self-contradictory!:uncontrol

You are well educated so there is no point preaching further on these aspects, or narrating how many of us will NOT drive if there is a single un-belted soul in the car.

I just want to share an invitation to introspect, to rethink.

Safety on wheels is like parenting. ALL parents say no. Only a few mean it. Even fewer set an example worth following.

The lesser said about your example, the better.:thumbs up