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-   -   Road Rage - Understanding, Avoidance and De-escalating Situation (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/road-safety/133373-road-rage-understanding-avoidance-de-escalating-situation-57.html)

Wish you had installed a dashcam.
Without evidence, I'm not sure that Police would entertain a complaint.
A video evidence would've made things much better.

Wish you had a dashcam installed as suggested by fellow BHPian. Apart from this, I would urge you not to speed and enjoy atleast at nights. God forbid doing the mentioned speeds indeed is a recipe for disaster as our Highways have all sorts of animals, vehicles without lights on, wrong way drivers and what not. As for the other person, sometimes losing is more important than winning and he/she surely doesn’t understand that. As for the claim and escalating this further, I don’t think other person’s insurance would accept the claim and bare the liability without evidence and you might have to repair it out of your pocket or from your insurance. (why else do we get it for?)

120 kmph on a 6-lane Indian highway with no cars is no great speed IMHO. I generally cruise at 120 kmph as my destination are 12-13 hours away and the roads are fantastic. But will take your point to not speed at night :thumbs up. I will lose my No-Claim Bonus if I claim my insurance, that's what I am skeptical for. MG inspected my car today and told they have to replace the fender, repaint the door, hood and the fender. They told it would cost around 84000 - 92000 Rupees! I am in dilemma - I am not the party whose wrong here. I have asked for the CCTV footage of the highway. Unfortunately, The number TN-07C is visible, but the last 4 digits are not visible.

BHPians, will need your help on this. Much appreciated, thank you!

That's what insurance is for. If I trip on a footpath and break a leg, my Mediclaim pays - it is meaningless to try to get the money from the government agency tasked with making that footpath. Some unknown person dents my car and disappears, my car insurance pays. If the claimed amount is far higher than the NCB, ir makes sense to claim. Otherwise pay from your own pocket.

I generally avoid getting into arguments with unknown individuals on road and ignore the ever-growing number of ‘idiots on road’ as much as I can because you never know what that person’s mental state is. Things can easily escalate, and situations can become nasty. But sometimes, unintentionally, the adrenaline rush gets the better of you.

This small incident happened recently when I was entering into Pune city after a long day’s drive. Luckily nothing major. There was continues flow of traffic and as a result, car queues at all the lanes at the Khed Shivapur toll plaza were quite lengthy. I selected one lane and was sticking to it admiring the derriere of the Octaivia in front of me. The queue slightly moved ahead creating a gap between the Octavia in front and me. I was in neutral, so I engaged my gear and just as I was planning to move ahead, an ‘idiot’ driving a WagonR in the adjacent lane decided to switch lanes and forced himself into my lane ahead of me. Already frustrated and tired due to a long day I drove next to him and tried to confront him and got into a verbal argument. He was just not willing to accept that it’s not right to cut into someone’s queue. On the contrary he was saying that I should not have left the gap :Frustrati. Thankfully I came to my senses soon and realized that there is no point in arguing with him anymore. My family was also present in the car so didn’t want to escalate it further. Funnily, right after the toll he stopped at one of the hotels probably for a tea break or something. So, he surely was in no rush to reach somewhere.

Not even a shred of civility from these ‘educated illiterates’ on roads. Or maybe it’s wrong on our part to expect it now?

P.S. Check the video below and skip to last 10 seconds. Ignore the time and date on the video. My dashcam has its own mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dve49oATXv8

I am not justifying the WagonR guy, but in India you leave a gap and someone is going to grab it. In fact sometimes just enough gap to put their nose is sufficient to put you on back foot. Etiquette is the last thing you can expect from these type of drivers.

I'm fully aware that keeping your calm is easier said than done. I'm also guilty of having seen red in the past, when someone does something needless like this, just to save like 2-3 seconds for no reason at all.

That said, you got to let it go. I generally switch to a ballad on the stereo and increase the volume a bit, drink a sip or two of water, mutter some uncouth language to myself inside my car and just let it go.

No amount of talking is going to change the other guy. He'll keep doing that until he finds another peabrain who does the same thing to him, and they get into a fist-fight and slap each other silly until their hair falls off (at least that's how I construct a story in my brain to cool down).

Yep, totally agree.

You are right, I kind of had a brain-fade moment there and acted stupidly. But luckily I backed out soon enough.

Nothing new. I had these issues in the early days. But now just let others pass by. Based on my experience, Instant Karma kicks in mostly on highways.

In another instance of mindless road rage in Bengaluru, a local Honda Dio rider gets off from his bike, makes harsh gestures and ultimately smashes the windshield of the car. Turns out that his real trigger was that the car was MH registered.

https://www.cartoq.com/road-rage-man...ngaluru-video/

The car owner has posted a video narrating the incident, on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cz-5Ec1tr0T/

One problem I have been facing and have got a somewhat solution for is, two wheelers and some four wheelers at intersections, butt in just enough to block your path and stop there. I don't know why, its their intention to cross, but I think they want me to come to a grinding halt so that its safe for them to cross and in the meantime they challenge me to hit their vehicle with mine if I have the guts! [Hope I've explained the issue sufficiently] They block my way and do not cross themselves waiting for me to stop.

The stop gap solution I have is, when I am approaching an intersection I double check the rear view mirrors to get an understanding of traffic behind me and then at the last minute in a swift manoeuvre, swerve out of my track passing them and then swerve back to my track. It's bliss to see their confused faces. It's not gotten me into trouble. Only one autorickshaw driver shouted 'kanthri' [a person who cheats or commits a fraud] when I played the trick on him

Another thing I have noticed is two wheelers wait on the sidelines wanting to cross and when there is a slow procession of cars in front of them, they at the last moment move into the gap between two vehicles by abruptly inserting their from mud guard into the gap. Again the idea is, to stop you or challenge you to hit their vehicle. The work around I have is again swerve to the left or right and pass the vehicle in front, traffic and road permitting. Net net, circumvent the two wheeler and continue

Max Verstappen of Bangalore rl:

What would you lose if you were to come to a standing stop - let the morons pass?

As much as you claim you check the mirrors etc and doing the Max-move - there is still a big chance of an accident bro. And not everytime you can make the precision move God forbid you were to hit one of them - you'll land yourself in a bigger mess.

Max would just walk away and get another car for himself :)

PS: No offence meant - it's just friendly sarcasm.

We only get to know the drivers side of the story. We don't know what led to that altercation. It's not that our driver was a saint and said nothing to aggravate the "hero".

But yeah - what that guy did is unpardonable & hope like the end result every other road rage incident - he's caught, rowdy sheeted, punished, penalised.

The only kannada phrase he should learn is "saary saar" - instead of trying to prove "I am right" -- Very few in this world would admit to a mistake apologize & move on.

This will work only if there is no vehicle parallel to you when you approach the intersection, right?

More unfortunate incidents and lives lost

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/.../106462994.cms

As the great Ayrton Senna said "Being a racing driver means you are racing with other people and if you no longer go for a gap that exists you are no longer a racing driver because we are competing."
And everyone is a racing driver at Toll Plazas and going for each and every gap that opens up. So never mind and be thankful and he didn't brush your car.