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Time and again on this thread we have had enough debates on the safety aspects of a car and the "Build quality" that a car can have to save lives in case of accidents. Let us simply not waste time talking about Brand A being safer than Brand B under similar circumstances.

In cases like these, there is simply NO CHANCE for survival. The stretch where this happened is super fast and will entertain any irresponsible driver who wants to try his car's top speed.

Jumping off the median and clashing head on to a fully laden truck! Even if that had happened at the slowest of speeds, the results would've been disastrous.

As you can read from the report, even the truck driver is serious and is admitted to a hospital.

The occupants of the ill-fated vehicle were returning from Shirdi and were proceeding towards their destination in Goa. Hence, It is also a possibility that they may have started their journey midnight and would've continued towards their final destination without proper sleep after that tiring day at a pilgrimage center.

Another typical reason for accidents is families returning from pilgrimage trips. Owing to standing in long queues and back to back Darshan of their deities at various temples within a single day and the urge to return back by driving overnight leaves them completely tired :-

This perhaps is the biggest RISK people fail to realize and becomes one of the major reasons for loss of so many lives just because the driver dozes off at the wheels. Moreover, none of the occupants of the ill-fated vehicles would be even awake to keep their driver busy and attentive while he is feeling miserably sleepy and bored due to an empty stretch at night, typical sound of a constant RPM of a Diesel engine (Tempo Trax, TTs, Boleros, Sumos) that kinda becomes a lullaby for them.

I may have been the co-passenger next to the driver so many times during those fun filled college and school trips and I always prefer to virtually drive along with the driver and get into a constant conversation with him right since my childhood.

I still remember when my uncle had hired a Sumo from Pune (Wayback in 1997 when we drove from Belur to Sirsi to Pune in 24 hours) and I preferred staying awake - One reason was the love for watching roads and other was for making sure that the driver doesnt feel lonely (Or even insulted for that matter) that everyone else sleeps while he drives.

And most the such accidents where a vehicle jumps off a median, the reason quoted is a Tire Burst. I have been a part of one such accident in Kalol (Near Ahmedabad) where I was behind the wheel of an Indica and a rickshaw suddenly swerved right. To avoid hitting the rickshaw, I tried my best to slow down and squeeze the car with whatever space was left between the median and the Rickshaw. I may have been at speeds of 50-60kmph when my front right tire (brand new) brushed against the median and immediately burst. Since my speed wasn't much, I was lucky that the car didn't climb the median.

Hence, there can be cases where the driver can also doze off at the wheels and come too close to the median and the tire bursts. Essentially, a tire burst may have happened "During" the accident but may not have been the cause for the accident itself the way media reports most of the times.

I believe this is the Fortuner accident which was talked about in which 10 died.

10 people died!!

Obviously, most or none of them were belted up, add to that, the car was overloaded. If only 7 people, all belted, I am sure fatalities would have been reduced to 1 or 2.

The overloading would have led to loss of control!

Nope you should blame their parents for.not having given them a good spanking when they were naughty. As our incomes increase, we tend to think money suffices every need of the child. We all know what the result of that is. Not just on roads but in daily life.

Speaking of ads i dont find any difference in the expressions of the girls doing the premium icecreams&chocolate biscuit ads and those in the deo ads. We are selling different products with a similar approach. But then this is going OT.

Cheers

I refer to your whole post, but just quoted a bit, as lots of other posts have come in between...

Very well said.

We can be still be completely selfish, but drive well --- by simply realising that it is our bodywork and then our flesh and bones that will suffer. Consideration for others is much to be desired on the roads, but this kind of selfishness is a good start. Nobody thinks that they are at risk. The newspapers and our accidents threads prove otherwise: even a Merc can be mangled without too much difficulty.

Be selfish. Look after your own skin. If every body is, it will actually make it better for everybody!

+1
No car ensures survival in all possible incidents. Manufacturers are trying to make cars as safe as possible, but a 100+ kmph crash head on (which is actually 200+ because of the other vehicles speed) or t-boning incident is way beyond a passenger cars capability.

I also agree to the pilgrimage trip theory. I've had many friends embark on the return trip way past 8PM after a grueling day trip to Tirupathi and the likes, for a 4+ hour journey. Sleep over, leave early in the morning, and you've missed nothing.

Thanks Parag, for this gem of a post in which you have hit the nail on the head regarding how the "dozing off at the wheel" happens.

During my long drive back all the way from Bhubaneswar to Bangalore my father in law took special efforts not to sleep while I was driving. It helped me immensely. Stopping for a sip of tea from a hot flask whenever I started feeling a bit too comfy was the other thing I did, which helped a lot.

100% you are right. Most of these accidents happen during pilgrimage. May be they become more dearer to God after prayers.

^^^ And add to it the fact that most of the drivers ( barring professional Taxi drivers) are treading unknown terrain and the better highways inviting these fatigued ones to up the speed.

Saw thiis today near Jeppu, Mangalore

One of my scariest experiences was a 1984 drive in an Ambassador Taxi from Jammu to Srinagar. The downside was that the driver was very sleepy, upside was that he realized that upfront and requested my uncles to sit in front and talk to him throughout the drive.

Needless to say, we made it but HE ensured that WE stayed awake! :-)

A friend of mine said yesterday morning he saw a heavily modified (at least externally) Esteem was overspeeding near gold ground, and crashed into a median and was totally wrecked.
Does anyone have more info on this?

Was witness to this live accident around 3p today on BETL. I was around 100 mts behind when I saw the car hit the divider and do a spin which was almost a 360 and ended up blocking both the lanes.

It was a lady driver who was quite shaken up after the crash, Luckily there was just one vehicle behind her who braked in time. Looks like she dozed off or was not concentrating and hit the median in quite an angle that the front was totally damaged.

Absolutely. There's only so much safety features in a vehcile can do to defy the laws of physics and biology. And yet there exists an unreasonable expectation among the motoring public that 'brand A' is safer than 'brand B' in an accident such as the one being discussed. While the vehicle itself may suffer different levels of damage the human body is certainly not designed to survive a high speed head-on crash (or a high speed roll over like the one in the chilling video posted earlier). The onus is on each one of us to consider adequate (maximum?) safety features while selection our rides, but thats just step 1 in the safety 'process'.

In an ideal world we would refuse to get into a vehicle on a long drive if we knew that the driver was not well rested. However in the real world the best we can do is to make sure that we constantly remember that the person behind the wheel needs to be alert to road and traffic conditions.

In the past it was habitual for me to stop for a cup of tea \ coffee on long drives when i felt drowzy. However for the past few months Ive been trying an alternate option. Short naps. I pull into a rest area or into the parking lot of a restaurant, make sure that my spouse is awake (and happily plugged into one of those 'i' devices) and nap for 15-20 mins. A sip of water is all i need when I wake up to stay alert for atleast 3 - 4 hours.
This may not work for everyone, but personally I find this a more effective, healthier option than caffeine. The down side is that one needs to find a place to park which isnt too noisy on account of close proximity to the highway at the same time not too remote to evoke security concerns.

A very pertinent point to this discussion - driving according to prevailing conditions. When in unknown territory its best to keep speeds atleast 10 - 20 km lower that ones normal cruising speeds. Same goes for inclement weather conditions.

whoa!! that's a nasty crash! was the woman alright? did she need medical assistance?

looks like she went from left lane to right lane and into the divider pretty fast! probably loss of concentration.