Team-BHP - Accidents in India

From the other angle I can see that figo was still at speed when it hit the trailer from left side of figo.

Boy, I avoid touching 100 like plague, and this video makes we want to drive at 80 kmph on highways.

RIP souls. Driver should have hard braked long before.

Also, had ABS helped him to swerve and perhaps slow down ? Who knows they might have hit the tyres in that case.

Quote:

Originally Posted by zenren (Post 3000124)

headlight cannot illuminate an object that is beyond the braking distance when the speed is 100+.

Braking distance of Figo at 100 kmph would have been 50 meters. Truck was illuminated by Figo's headlights even before car is visible in Video (18 seconds @ http://www.ibnlokmat.tv/showvideo.php?id=270842).

Given that length of Figo is 3.79 meters, that can be used to estimate length of stretch of road where break light is visible.

That length comes to be about 30 meters.

So any speed above 60 kmph is suicidal on the stretch of road that has a junction right ahead..

Length of car
As per spec Spec.................. 3.79 meters
In Video grab........................ 75.92 pixels

Scale of Grab........................ 0.049920969 Meters per pixel

Length of Road in Grab............ 630 Pixels
Length of Road in Grab ...........31.45021075 meters

Braking distance calculator:

http://forensicdynamics.com/stopping...nce-calculator

What a horrible Figo accident. RIP. And the person saved must surely be sleeping in the backseat or ducked just in the split second.

Gave me goosebumps when I thought of the passengers inside and the impact they have had on their heads when rammed into the truck.

And am sure the driver must have thought that the truck will pass by when he reaches the intersection and did not brake hard. By the time he realized that he would hit the truck, as can be seen in the video, a second or two before the collision, he braked very hard. It was too late by then.

Sheer negligence and probably over confidence that he would steer away in the last minute, wet roads and being drunk(?) are the reasons I can think of.

Very sad and a lesson for all of us.

It seems to me that the Figo driver did not realize that it was a trailer crossing the road. I guess he thought it was a normal length truck. He realized too late that the vehicle was longer than he thought. I think the car was doing high speeds and even with a normal length truck he was cutting it too fine.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DRIVE_ADDICT (Post 3000188)

It seems the driver applied the brake way before, it is evident from the brake light.

...seems he applied hand break (hazards also lit up)...

The lights you see from the beginning may just be the tail lights and the brake was applied very very late. I do not think there are separate sets of lights for regular brakes and hand brakes or "hazards".

Quote:

Originally Posted by flyingkolors (Post 3000300)

And am sure the driver must have thought that the truck will pass by when he reaches the intersection and did not brake hard. By the time he realized that he would hit the truck, as can be seen in the video, a second or two before the collision, he braked very hard. It was too late by then.

What you are saying is very possible. He may have underestimated the length of the truck and he braked very hard a fraction of a second before impact. The truck is way too long. If it was a normal length truck he would have made it.

Of course he should have slowed down for the intersection but that truck was endless!!

:(

Quote:

Gave me goosebumps when I thought of the passengers inside and the impact they have had on their heads when rammed into the truck.

I don't have the stomach to watch it again, but it would not only have been the crushing roof: the truck wheels slammed into the car as well.

There could have been no possible way out of that accident except for straight up. Every junction is a junction one should be ready to stop at. You can imagine how much cab drivers hate being behind me!

This seems to be a big junction where the trailer has slowed down first on a speed breaker and only then moved on at a slow speed crossing the junction. It's clearly the poor driver who was at fault as he did not slow down and went straight into the trailer.

The road it not wet. It is a concrete road and so the reflection. According to a news report these guys had come to Navi Mumbai from some place near Pune to buy this car, and they were on their way back. Apart from being drunk the driver might not have been too familiar with the braking distance. It is a simple case of too much speed at the wrong place and time.

A friend was a witness to this accident, he was returning from Ratnagiri on his bike at that time. He saw the accident, and called the police. He told me that they found alcohol bottles in the car, so this is definitely a case of drunk driving. Feel sad for the truck driver though, he will have to go through so many hassles, might have even got arrested even though this wasn't his fault.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vid6639 (Post 3000172)

Guys if you see the hazard lamp comes on at the last minute just before impact.

As per the Figo manual, the hazard lamp start flashing only when brakes are applied at speeds greater than 96KMPH and the rate of deceleration is higher than some preset value.

This means that the guy did not brake hard enough and he was doing 100kmph + approaching the intersection.

Big mistake.

Exactly. When I saw the video, I just looked for the conditions for the hazard lights to come ON, in the manual. 100+ kmph on Indian roads at night itself is plain stupid, let alone at a junction.
Maybe he was resting his foot on the brake pedal thinking that the trailer will pass by the time he reaches the intersection. In India, especially in cities, a majority of people do calculated driving. I encounter it many times in Bangalore. Instead of taking defensive steps, people try to read the minds of others, like "I will reach the intersection at x time and by that time, he would have moved y meters and I can safely pass." And many times, this works too. But when it does not, most of the time, it results in accidents.

Quote:

Originally Posted by prateekm (Post 3000461)

If its a case of drunken driving then that trailer was probably the best thing for them to have crashed into. Driving at such speeds approaching an intersection is insane. Imagine if they had crashed into a passenger car. It pains me to see innocent lives being lost due to drunken driving. We need stricter laws.

THe CCTV footage will save the truck driver.

Quote:

Originally Posted by prateekm (Post 3000461)

Presence of bottles does not mean it is case of drunk driving. May be driver is not drunk. May be he is carrying alcohol to his home. Postmortem report will clear the things.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DRIVE_ADDICT (Post 3000188)

OMG! thats a horrible video Figo ramming to the Truck. RIP the souls.

It seems the driver applied the break way before, it is evident from the break light. May be he was at a very high speed. You can also notice smoke coming out of tires after the car passes the zebra line, seems he applied hand break (hazards also lit up) or he might pump the break with a slam when he went too close to the Trailer.

Wet condition of the road, high speed and poor visibility leads the accident it seems. I think the driver have no space to steer left or right. In that panic braking we can't expect a smart move from the driver.

Don't know whether its just me, The car enters into the CCTV footage with break lights on, so it seems the driver applied the break way before, but i feel the car doesn't slowed down considerably, break issue??.

As shown in the footage, the light you define as break light is actually parking lights. He breaked at the last second , can seen from the fact / footage just seconds before collision, and the second red light @ top of parking light came on. This clearly shows he did notice the container, but probably saw it too late.