Quote:
Originally Posted by Gildarts
However, if some vehicle had been following Driv3r at similar speeds, he would have had no time to react. Imagine the car in front moving to his right suddenly and an LCV coming at you head on in your lane. This maneuver is risky if there had been vehicles behind in either direction. Anyway good that nothing untoward happened.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Samurai
I have to go with the minority opinion here.
The OP was extremely lucky there was nobody behind the mini-truck coming on the correct side. And it was also extremely lucky that there was nobody behind OP who wouldn't have been shocked to find a mini-truck suddenly appearing in front of them.
The correct response would be to slow down and drive into the left shoulder, which had lot less probability of ending up in an accident. That would warn the traffic behind him too. But OP chose a path that had a very high probability of accident, not only to him, but for any oncoming traffic behind the mini-truck, and any traffic following OP.
I congratulate him for surviving an extremely dangerous evasive action. But I would not recommend the evasive action he took.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by R2D2
You are extremely luck there was nothing following that AL Dost, or whatever the LCV is, on the right hand side of the road (where you swerved to) or you'd have had a head on collision with that vehicle.
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I would like to reiterate that The OP was very very fortunate in evading the dangerous situation with God smiling down on him.
I was in a similar situation on NH1 nearly 15 years ago, driving from Faridabad to Hoshiarpur, with My parents, My sister and her family in an Indica. That was the time when NH1 was being fourlaned and there were stretches where the road was single carriage with both directions of traffic on the same side.
it was around 9 AM and I was driving at around 30-35 with a long line of cars behind me some distance before Panipat and with traffic equally thick on the other side. I had my headlights on, it was a clear day in March or April.
There was a lull in the traffic on the other side, allowing me to speed up to around 40-45 (I did not speed up further as I was unsure of the turnoff to the left side of the road where the road became dual carriage.
Suddenly I saw a haryana roadways bus hurtling towards me from afar at above 80-90. You know a time when you start feeling that the situation is no good. The bus was still more than 1 km away atleast but his overtaking maneuvers left me slightly uneasy and I started flashing my lights and turned on my Hazards. I was also intermittently honking my horn, hoping that the bus driver would take note of my car and leave my lane.
As he approached me, I slowed down to around 30 to give him space to maneuver.
Finally around 100 mts ahead of me, the driver finally swerved violently to his side of the road and I breathed a sigh of relief.
However as soon as the bus driver went to the left of the road, leaving space for me to cross his vehicle, out comes an indica/indigo ( I am still not sure of which car it was till this date...)
This guy was apparently racing with the bus driver and trying to overtake. As soon as he saw the opening he gunned for it without waiting for line of sight.
I was at 30 KMPHish, he was easily above 90 and I felt for sure that we would be into a head-on.
All I could do was to move my car fractionally to the left, towards the curb and brace for impact. I and my brother in law in the first seat were the only ones wearing seat belts.
To this day, I do not know how the other driver managed it, but he swerved back to the left and managed to avoid a head on with me.
However, his car swiped the entire left side of my car from the front fender to C pillar, without hitting my headlights or the taillights. The entire car shook like anything. My side view mirror broke off like a shot and vanished. The sound of two cars kissing and scraping along each other was loud...
And then it was over. I was still moving at around 20 kmph, so I straightened the car and seeing the turn ahead, move to the left side of the road before stopping.
The only injury was my nephew, who banged his teeth against the front seat headrest and got bleeding gums.
Everyone was so shook, as half the occupants in the car never even realized it was gonna happen before it did.
The other car did not stop at all and vanished. I got down from the car and within 5 minutes I ascertained that the car was functioning normally and I continued on to hoshiarpur and back, around 500 km.
But that close shave was really something that has stayed with me in my more than 25 years of driving experience.
I was reminded of that incident, looking at the video. And I have to go with the minority view. I am sure the OP did keep in mind the traffic behind him and oncoming traffic before doing this maneuver.
However it is not the right thing to do in such cases, as pointed out by members. it is better to slow down and move to the left. Even if you end up in a side swipe, it is better to avoid an unseen headon with another unsuspecting oncomer.