[poised2drive]

Originally Posted by smartcat

My distant link with this G-class guy is that he happens to be the Director of my son's school (Narayana Group).

Not blaming the parents are such - but a 20-something kid should not be allowed to drive a 500 BHP car regularly. Just consider all the idiotic antics we did with 50 to 100 BHP car at that age.

I have to second this.

20s is rather a dangerous age to be behind the wheel of a monster. I am not generalizing, it is just the Biology !

Irresponsible Exuberance, Lack of a Healthy Fear and Little Experience is a perilous combination on the Roads.

I feel the parents are signing their kids'death warrant by handing over them such humongous machines.

Off the topic, I am a student of Narayana Group.

I read [ in a news paper] the victim was returning from a staff meeting which was held the previous night and since it rained, they had to wait till the wee hours to start.

[TorqueTwist]

Two young souls lost because of crazy speeds. The CCTV footage shows the kind of speed the car was when it crashed into the pillar. An English newspaper says that the speedometer has stuck at 205 KMPH. It was a head on collision with the pillar and even the brakes were not applied as there was no visibility of the brake light flash in the footage. Could see in the footage a car zooming with great speed seconds before the G 63 crashed into the pillar. Could there be a road race going!!! The same driver was fined four times in this year for over speeding.

R.I.P

[Arjun Reddy]

Originally Posted by Rehaan

Do you have a source link for this?

Everything I see says the G-Class / G63 is "not yet rated".

The G Class doesn't have a rating. After this accident I have tried to search for it and there seems no evaluation on the G. Wouldn't a manufacturer like Mercedes have a voluntary evaluation done on its models ? After all they pride themselves with the ' Best or nothing ' punch line in their campaigns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fj2...&feature=share

Probably a clearer CCTV footage of the accident.

[ShortShifter]

Originally Posted by wannabelean

I live less than one km from the site. There is no way any car can do 200 plus on that road. It has to be wrong. The pillar is at a bend of about 30-45 degrees and 50 meters before that bend there is another 45 degrees bend which they crossed.

Around the accident time, the city was experiencing heavy thunderstorms and rains. Infact if you look up the news, you'll see reports of hailstones all over the city last night.

Check attached image

Originally Posted by Hickstead

Yes. But the vehicle is travelling in the opposite direction compared to what you have shown in your map pic. Vehicle is travelling from Jubilee hills check post towards Pedamma temple and while manipulating the 'S' curve, the driver rammed into the pillar 9. Even I can not imagine the possibility of touching the speeds of 200+ on that road. The speedo might have jumped forward and struck due to the impact of the collision.

Originally Posted by prithm

It is possible. Visit KBR Park road early hours of Saturday or Sunday or Monday mornings and see the speeds these super rich kids achieve in short sprints.

Infact the road is incline from check post and then it declines towards Madhapur. So, if you floor the pedal at Check Post, you will would have reached 150 by the time you reach the famous Jag showroom and the bends are not 90 deg. They snake. With the metro pillar work going on and the barricades put in place, nothing deters them.

If the intention is to get killed, what can anyone on this planet do ???

Originally Posted by sudev

Is the road design confusing at that spot? Improperly marked pillar in middle of road? Maybe those who live in that area can shed light on road engineering aspect.

Not Possible to do 200 kmph on this stretch even with a monster like this, the road is pretty uneven, filled with metro construction barricades, pillars & obstacles, also has an unmarked huge S Curve right before the point of impact. Also the roads were completely wet due to thunderstorm like conditions at the time of accident, could have been around 150 kmph, but even thats an insane speed for that stretch.

Sad to see lives being lost to thirst for speed !

[ajmat]

Originally Posted by Arjun Reddy

Wouldn't a manufacturer like Mercedes have a voluntary evaluation done on its models ?

Would you submit yourself for an exam where you would surely fail. If I am correct, Mercedes would have ideally ended production but customer and institutional demand (read Army) keeps this car running.

Again Mercedes do not make this car, it is made by Steyr Puch who have more of an interest in keeping this running

[Hickstead]

Originally Posted by ShortShifter

Not Possible to do 200 kmph on this stretch even with a monster like this, the road is pretty uneven, filled with metro construction barricades, pillars & obstacles, also has an unmarked huge S Curve right before the point of impact.

Mr Nishith was driving from Narayanaguda to his home in Jubilee hills, which was just one kilometer away from the accident spot. It was very unfortunate that he was just short of 1 km to be home. Police have identified the vehicle in the CCTV at different signals between Narayanaguda and accident spot, which is quite far. So, coming from a party or pub with the influence of alcohol can be ruled out.
This chap should have used this Road no 36 many times for his daily commute.So, I believe strongly that he should be very well aware of that pillar and 'S' curve. Unless he loose the control of the vehicle while doing something around 120-150, this shouldn't have happened.

Since it was already very late in the night, bad weather,no evidences for trying to apply brakes or trying to steer away the vehicle from the pillar, I think we can not rule out the possibilities of dozed off at the wheel as well.

[#enzowho]

Its already unfortunate that two young souls have been lost and this discussion regarding what speed the driver was doing is quite redundant at this point so we should put an end to this discussion on humanitarian grounds and let the authorities come to a conclusion based on scientific facts and tests.

Irresponsible or not,two lives have been lost and let us please show sympathy for that.

As a doctor and a human being we should let this go and not judge the person for what he did. I'm sorry if I hurt anyone's sentiments here. I hope everyone takes it in good spirit.

[Rehaan]

I think this accident has a lot of the perfect ingredients for outrage:

- Young driver [✓]
- Rich [✓]
- Son of politician [✓]
- Driving fancy car [✓]
- Speeding [✓]
- (Late?) at night [✓]
- City street [✓]
- Endangering the lives of others [✓]
- Drunk [_]
- Killed other road users [_]
- Hit and run [_]
- His 'driver' was driving [_]
- Released without bail [_]

As a result, we'll see what we believe, and might overlook some things.

---

Firstly, I don't think looking at the frozen-in-place speedometer is an accurate judge of how fast a car was going at the time of an accident. In fact quite a few BHPians have said that 200 on that road is not possible.

Some times the stuck speedo reading can be accurate, but you certainly can't use it as a definitive measurement. Look at this study.

27 cases. Lets look at the 3 where the needle showed 140 km/h or greater:

180 km/h >actual> 113 km/h
200 km/h >actual> 82 km/h
148 km/h >actual> 54 km/h



Next, lets take a closer look at the curve at the accident spot (the G63 would be driving away from you):


Look at how narrow the road is here. Barely 3 Indicabs wide:


And here's something no one has mentioned on the thread - there's 2 bikers there - seeming to occupying a large part of the road:


G63 approaching fast, while the bikers are going fairly slow:


I don't think anyone disagrees that the G63 was going too fast. Though I think here he tried to avoid the bikers...


And the high speed resulted in the car hitting the pillar (perhaps some understeer or aquaplaning too):



Unfortunate ending... but perhaps the better one, if loss of life was an inevitable outcome.

--

The reason this (and the Accidents in India) threads exists is so that we can learn from others' costly mistakes, rather than it being a thread to release anger, jump to conclusions and play blame games.

I think the lessons here are clear for all BHPians. Drive within your limits. Speed is dangerous, regardless of how cool your car is. Expect the unexpected. And be consistent and disciplined in following this to do your best at staying safe and keeping others safe on the road.

Hope more people start to learn these things!

[D33-PAC]

Awesome post Rehaan. You must have been a forensic investigator and criminal justice detective in your previous life .

My question to you is - how fast do you think a G63 or G65 or whatever it was can get from 0 to 200 KMPH ? If the distance traveled over the time fits within a straight line on that very same road then it makes sense to blame speeding .

[Rehaan]

Originally Posted by D33-PAC

My question to you is - how fast do you think a G63 or G65 or whatever it was can get from 0 to 200 KMPH ? If the distance traveled over the time fits within a straight line on that very same road then it makes sense to blame speeding .

Even if a G63 could hit 200 on that stretch, it still wouldn't mean it did!

Also, I don't think anyone here is saying that speed isn't to blame.

Look at the double left-hander. If you're speeding here, you're asking for trouble:



However, the accurate & best way to determine the speed in this case would be to get the original CCTV footage (not one re-captured on a cell-phone and then sped up / slowed down by the news channel) and calculate distance over time.

Measure the distance between pillars, and how many frame / milliseconds it took the car to go from one to another.

Then use the formula: Speed = Distance / Time.

[anvara]

Take a bow Rehaan. Great deduction.

Originally Posted by Rehaan

And here's something no one has mentioned on the thread

I had mentioned this about the bikers in my post # 1503 but definitely not from an angle where the Merc tried avoiding them as you have mentioned.

Don't know how far the deceased tried to avoid them but if he did, the bikers can consider themselves extremely lucky.

Not so for the driver and his friend though.

[IN07KL0484]

Originally Posted by Rehaan

Do you have a source link for this?

Everything I see says the G-Class / G63 is "not yet rated".

Originally Posted by Arjun Reddy

The G Class doesn't have a rating. After this accident I have tried to search for it and there seems no evaluation on the G. Wouldn't a manufacturer like Mercedes have a voluntary evaluation done on its models ? After all they pride themselves with the ' Best or nothing ' punch line in their campaigns.

This is precisely what I am aiming for too. Even though in this case no car may have been safe enough, but at the same time, it would be quite interesting to get the facts about G-Class's safety.

I could not find any source which says anything about crash tests conducted on G-Class. End of the day it's a 40-year-old chassis with very high center of gravity. And having good build quality and how the structure behaves under a collision are two different things.

I think it's high time to put this myth of G class to rest! Expert opinions requested.

[Rehaan]

Originally Posted by D33-PAC

My question to you is - how fast do you think a G63 or G65 or whatever it was can get from 0 to 200 KMPH ?

Since you asked...

The question should be; "how much distance does it take..." - so the easiest/laziest way is to see the car's trap speed.

The max quarter mile speed (trap speed) at the end of a run is ~ 105 mph (168 km/h) for the G63.

A quarter mile = 400 meters (note - I've marked that out on the road):


Also, don't forget, a quarter mile is from a standstill. In this case the car would be turning the corner at 20-60 km/h.

So in short, yes, it could certainly hit close to 200 km/h on that stretch.

However, I think the pillar is after the first left hander (not sure, as I am not familiar with the area), and really doubt a G63 would be able to carry a 205 km/h speed through there...

Personally I don't trust the frozen speedo on this one - and we should really stop considering it evidence, as one day it might get an innocent person into trouble.

[ecenandu]

Originally Posted by Rehaan

The reason this (and the Accidents in India) threads exists is so that we can learn from others' costly mistakes, rather than it being a thread to release anger and play blame games.

I think the lessons here are clear for all BHPians. Drive within your limits. Speed is dangerous, regardless of how cool your car is. Expect the unexpected. And be consistent and disciplined in following this to do your best at staying safe and keeping others safe on the road.

Absolutely agree, buddy.We need to look at things rationally and not let prejudice cloud your opinions. An event data recorder is the only way to ascertain the speed of the impact.

High time that we have regulations which makes having an event data recorder necessary for every car or at least on cars with self driving capability. Sooner the better.

[Thad E Ginathom]

What happens to the car indicates very high speed. Compare with the crash-test video of a Ford hatchback at 120MPH that somebody posted: I'm sure the rear end of this Merc is much heavier.

People can argue for ever about whether it was 200, 195, 150, 100... but this was a wet road and even 50 might have been pushing it.

Sadly, few people actually know the dangers of driving on a wet surface. This has nothing to do with the price of the car they drive: they think it is all the same, and it isn't.