[tp_dominator]

One of the perils of driving on the roads often is such cases do happen. Unfortunately I have been involved in more than a couple of them where I have been at fault too.

Once in 2017, I was driving to work on the Ganeshkhind Road at Pune in my Grand i10 and the flyover opposite to Rahul cinema creates some blind spots due to the elevation. I was at around 40 kmph and as soon as I approached the highest part of the incline, I noticed a traffic pile up. I was going to move to the next lane but due to some bikers wasn't able to and couldn't apply brakes on time. I ended up hitting the left bumper corner of a Maruti Swift and a lady behind me on a TVS Jupiter rear ended me due to the sudden braking and fell down. I got out of the car, apologized to both immediately and offered to pay for damages knowing fully well I was at fault. The Swift driver wanted to have a fight and wanted to know whether I belonged to MH or not since I wasn't speaking Marathi. However, seeing my calm, composed and apologetic tone, he calmed down. The lady was also calm seeing my behavior. Later got to know the Swift guy was some Regional HR at Canara Bank and we went to a workshop near to his work place. The worshop guys praised me handling the situation and coming to them. He asked for a sum of Rs. 1000 to fix the Swift up. I then took the lady to her hospital (she was a nurse actually) and gave her my number in case she needed any medical attention. That was the end of it. The Grand i10 had just a little scratch on both the bumpers which didn't need fixing.

In 2022, while driving on the Pune Bangalore bypass near Hinjewadi bridge in my Tata Safari, I was with my family returning from Shirdi. My little one had travelled a lot for her age and was being a little fussy. There was some traffic pile up and ahead of me was a Swift with blacked out windows and almost illegible number plate with 5 burly guys sitting in it. The Swift guy applied brakes suddenly and as my attention was divided, I couldn't brake on time. Speed would have been roughly 10-13 kmph and bumped into it. All the people from the car came out and I lowered my window and apologized immediately pointing out to my child that I was distracted and I was ready to pay for damages if any caused to their car. They looked once in the car and apologized to me and went away.

In 2023, I was returning from someplace and near the Saibaba Tata signal at Kalewadi, just after that there was a traffic pile up and I was waiting patiently. A biker came and rear ended me on the rear left. I was pissed profusely since the car was barely a couple of months old and started to move my car to the left signalling the biker to stop and wait. But he decided to run away. Somehow other people saw it and stopped the biker. I would have let him go but him trying to run away pissed me off more. Seeing there was no escape, he apologized to me and offered to pay for damages. I just took 2k from him as insurance claim charges and let him go.

There are more such instances which I can recall but it will be too long. My point here is, insurance is your friend and if there is little damage, there is no point arguing or escalating things. However, in case of major or multiple damages due to pile-up always take ample photos/videos and insist on a police report as these will help you in claiming insurance always.

[kiranknair]

I would just claim my insurance and move on. Our streets are filled with uncivilized people and many of them hooligans, who are just waiting for a chance to indulge in a fight. It is simply not worth it to be a street fighter.

[TorqueAddict007]

I also faced a minor incident a week ago. I was doing my daily commute on Mysore Road when a burly guy in an Opel Corsa zigzagged to overtake me in order to get through the Jnanabarthi signal when it was green. He couldn't do it and slammed the brakes immediately. I did what I could and thankfully I'd tried to keep some distance and knew not to tailgate such drivers, but it was still too short of a distance and so even though I braked with as much force as I could, there was a small bump. The burly dude got out, in a huff of anger and all the two wheelers around me got ready for a heated argument, but I just held my hand up and gave him an apologetic smile, and once he saw that there was only a minor scratch on his car, he just gave an angry glare and left. My car came out of it relatively unscathed and once the signal left, I calmly drove to my college.

The thing is, whenever any incidents happen on road, unless there's a lot of damage involved or any injury, there's no point in getting out of the car and arguing. Doesn't matter whose mistake, just give an apologetic smile and move on, I learnt it from my uncle and it's something that defuses almost every minor accident. It may be somebody else's fault, they may drive like a maniac, we may not at all be at fault, but even then it makes no sense to pick a fight with such people. Plus mob justice is one of the most unpredictable and dangerous things you can face on the road. And who knows what sort of a person you're picking a fight with, may be some rowdy, may be connected to some influential dude, may decide to stick a pointy thing into you.

On top of all this, an angry argument on the road is the worst thing you can have for peace of mind. Is it really wise to put all this on line for just a few thousand rupees? I don't think so. I've been called a coward by my friends many a times for not scolding reckless drivers, for not using expletives and screaming at them from the bottom of my lungs. But I don't mind being called or labelled anything, there's nothing I have to prove. There's nothing manly about fighting in the middle of the street, there's nothing manly about shouting expletives. Energy and time are precious, we could waste it on lousy drivers, or we can conserve them for something more productive. We have a saying in Kannada for this which roughly translates to - "Whether the rock hits the mud, or the mud hits the rock, it is always the rock that gets dirty."

[Mystic]

I voted other. It all depends on the situation. For e.g if you are moving a car by a truck and the truck meets with an accident, your insurance will pay NOTHING. We have to fight with the truck agency and get whatever little we get from their insurance.

Coming to my personal experience with a small accident of my Mercedes in a parking lot at airport in USA ( this is a routine of parking my car every week from Monday morning to Thursday evening due to my travel to work ). When I came back I noticed the bumper has a deep dent and saw a business card stuck to my windshield wiper with Sorry written on it. I planned to call the phone number on the card after I go home. Some miracle happened. After I reached home, the bump is no more there and I was shocked. I thought I was hallucinating because of long flight and became sleepy. My best guess is that the bumper regained to its original position because it is made of some special material like rubber etc. I didn’t call the business card and forgot about the incident.

[Vikash Kumawat]

I have a 2013 Swift Diesel 1.3, which does not have ABS and Airbags, and it doesn't beep or make noise when you don't buckle up seat belts; only a seat belt light blinks in the Mid. On 4th March, I was coming home from a short drive, The road was totally empty because it was an area where a new society was to be built and it is government acquired land, It was near Jaipur-Sikar-Bikaner highway (NH-52). It was a proper 4-lane road with a proper divider, I was on the leftmost lane at 10 kmph speed as I just ended a call and started moving, suddenly I felt like someone picked my car and threw it ( like King-Kong movie ), I was in another world for 2-3 minutes, luckily I had buckled up the seat belt ( thank god ). After 2 minutes I came outside of the car and saw a Dezire Taxi hit me from behind, the Taxi was almost at 70-80 kmph of speed and the driver was saying that it was only at 40 kmph of speed, my car fell away almost 40 meters from where the Taxi hit me, I quickly called to my father and asked him for a backup.

After about 20 minutes, my father came with my two uncles( my home was just 5 km), and on the other side, the owner of the Taxi had also arrived. Then I dialled 100 to call the police surprisingly, the emergency number was busy even after trying 4-5 times, can you believe this is what one can do in emergencies? Fortunately, my uncle is in Jaipur Police posted in Rajasthan Police Headquarters in Commissionarate Jaipur, he came with my father, and he personally called his friend in police and asked them to send police help immediately, after calling them a Bolero came with police officers, they asked both parties if we were safe, wrote down our statements and took a photo of our Driving Licence. To our surprise, the driver of the Taxi ran away in front of police and 100s of people who came on the spot. After 2-3 hours of drama, both parties had come to a settlement without any police case as we did not want any court and police tortures as we all know that our country sucks in court cases and no resolution for a long time.

It was our first car, which we bought as second-hand with hard-earned money and a long time wait, and seeing the car in this situation puts us under stress. Luckily I came out without any scratch, all thanks to seat belt. After dragging for almost 40 meters my car hit a transformer wire ( which gives support to the pole or used for earthing) and stopped, otherwise car would have hit the pole and the transformer could have fallen on the car ( thank god ).

This is my first post/thread on Team-Bhp. I wanted to write my recent travelogue about the Jaipur—Udaipur road trip, which was almost 1100 km roundtrip via the amazing Golden Quadrilateral Highway, but God had other plans. I wish I could write about my travelogue soon, including how I did a trip with my 10-year-old Swift, which has done 1 lakh kilometres.

Check the pictures for reference.
Drive Safe
Vikash

[RunGaDa]

In India for minor scratches and dents it’s best to resolve on the scene itself. Only once a transport van side swiped my Ecosport. I went to file FIR because the driver did not have a valid license. It so happened the owner of the transport co. already greased hands of the police. The police refused to file FIR.
I was very busy those days and left it at there. Got body and painting work done for 10K rupees and don’t quite remember, but insurance claim was 80%

In the US of you are living temporarily on a Visa then mostly you will buy a used car. And if you are planning to return back then selling off the vehicle without accident record is most important. Unlike India they document every single event there.
Hence visa holder Indians try not to file claims for smaller issues.
Once in Houston I was returning back from a routine weekend grocery trip when after the green light I failed to see the traffic ahead was getting slow. I was not at very high speed but I happen to hit a vehicle ahead, just enough to cause a minor dent on the bumper.
The lady got out and immediately called her insurance. I told her I will settle her expenses if she agreed not to file an accident record.
She agreed and told me she will send me the bill.
We exchanged number and address and went away.
After a month she sent me a large bill of full bumper replacement. I was not expecting that as I thought the body shop would easily take care of denting and painting.
Since I had given my word I paid her by check. Cost me a vacation that year. But atleast no accident record in my vehicle history.

Luckily in India I am not rear ended till now. Oh well one over raging biker hit the spare wheel of my Ecosport once and was saved by his helmet. There was no harm done to the vehicle. Other than that. … touch wood!

[stallmaster]

Was rear-ended by a Grand i10 AT back on Dec 3rd last year(please ignore the faulty dashcam date imprint). You can see on the gif how it unfolded(yt link for sound). My Baleno had a bumper dent and the culprit's G-i10 had a dislodged condenser.

https://youtu.be/dVZKRYbclzA

Got down to check and the other person was like "Sir you braked suddenly it's your fault". : Please judge for yourself if I did that.

I suspect the driver was on the phone and the car being AT, he didn't slow down and downshift at the turn, hence the sudden braking you can hear on the video.

Long story short, took pictures of his insurance papers, rs1000 as claim amount(showed him the dashcam proof) and set off on my way with a cool head.

[Stribog]

Am surprised so many of us here say that they will ask for some money from the other party.

My philosophy is the same as GTO's, I will stop by the side (when it's safe and there's space, not blocking the road), inspect, assess damage and move on.

If the damage is small, less than my NCB I will pay out of pocket if not I will claim. Fighting with randos on the road for anything from 1-10k of payment (assuming they will even pay a high figure of 10k) is not my style. It's 100% not worth the aggravation.

I think it's a function of age in my case, in college and till my mid 30's I would stop and argue, got into fisticuffs a few times but realised that you never know which road raging rando has a knife or baseball bat or is dedicated enough to track your house down and do harm to your loved ones. Maybe the probability is ultra low, but it's not zero and I don't think any amount of money, esp something relatively trivial is even worth that level of aggravation and stress.

Pay your premiums ontime, claim and move on in life.

[jkrishnakj]

I've been through such an experience twice, once with my older Innova and the other time with my A6. I was bang in the middle of a 5 car serial one and could do nothing to help avoid that. Both frontal and rear had big damages. Car was still drivable, so quietly went to the Innova service centre and dealt with it. The other one was when a very old insurance expired, RC expired (>15 years car) driven by a student lost control on a curve and took me head on, on the opposite side of the road. Despite a lot of help from police that day, I finally had to deal with it, with the service centre and insurance. Peace!

[buzzy_boy]

Our XUV 700 was rear-ended recently. Claimed insurance and moved on. A couple of points to note:

1. Always better to file a police complaint. The party who rear-ended us was trying to file a complaint against us - claiming we hit them when trying to reverse on the main road. Dashcam came in handy.

2. Run a preliminary check with the other party's vehicle number on Vaahan. We learnt that their vehicle had been blacklisted due to non-payment of fines, and this significantly helped our cause.

[smasher]

It depends on how the accident has happened.

Recently spouse was involved in 2 minor accidents.

case 1.

A pickup tried to squeeze and overtake from left-due to judgemental error, he hit the front door-minor scratches.

He acknowledged his mistake and was very cooperative in sharing his driver's license & insurance details. He said he was running late on a delivery- the customer was pressurizing him & hence this mistake happened. Did not waste any time- let him go.

Case 2.

An outstation truck rear-ended spouse's car at a signal (Bumper to bumper traffic, the signal was read, time was around 9 pm) The driver was very arrogant, he further damaged the car trying to leave the scene. Police were at the signal-but he did not care and did not even stop.

We got very upset and managed to stop the truck at the next major junction (with the help of the police). Police got the truck to the traffic station. Immediately many guys arrived at the station in an SUV. They started intimidating us mentioning they have 20 trucks and each one of them makes 5-10 accidents per month and no one dares to touch them. They also mentioned, that my wife will not be able to bear the long legal battle.

We were very upset about what was happening, so after a short discussion we decided to walk the distance no matter what it took. It was midnight by then, so the police suggested filing FIR the next morning.

We went to the station again the next morning. The gang was there and tried to intimidate again mentioning local MLA is their brother. I called their bluff by telling them, I would leave the case if he talked to me. Once they saw that intimidation was not working, they changed the tone mentioning how poor the driver was and how the delay was causing them losses, etc.

Finally settled the matters amicably in the presence of police. The gang thanked me and promised me that I was their good friend now and to call them for any help.

Unless someone responds/is ready to fight, the number of arrogant and negligent drivers will increase day by day. And I must say this, Bangalore police were very helpful every time I contacted them.

[GeeTee TSI]

Question of repair costs aside, what is the first course of action to be taken and how does that work in practice? Does one call police or highway patrol or just RSA? In case the other vehicle involved in the accident does not behave in the manner majority of BHP-ians had voted, what is the recourse available? Delivering verdicts and justice at the spot by groups of irrational and worked up individuals is the concern which makes me raise this

[IshaanIan]

I think you did the right thing by letting him go and hopefully he will learn a lesson. Even I feel that when insurance handles such matters smoothly, then as long as the person in the wrong apologises, there is no need to pursue the matter much further if the guy gets out and behaves like he is every right to drive stupidly then that is an entirely different matter

[ike]

Just claim own insurance and move on. From my experience, arguing with the other party is a colossal waste of breath and time. Nothing ever comes out of it.

[drGicher]

Originally Posted by GTO

- We share roads with all kinds of creeps & thugs. You never know who is hiding a knife under his seat. Last year, I was on the Lonavla road in a super expensive car and an idiot rear-ended me. I smiled, gave him a friendly thumbs up and drove away. It's not my style to get out of the car to discuss who is at fault, argue or fight. Got more important things in life to take care of.

Totally echo on GTO's point of view here. Nothing is more expensive than self, and you can never know who the next person is. In case of such situation, don't get into conflict, smile, gulp the anger. Claim from insurance or spend from pocket. Still much more worthy than any harm to self and companions.