Bangalore Metro steel barrier falls on stationary 2 month-old Aveo

[itwasntme]

Guys,

Had an awful experience last week in my Aveo on Bangalore's infamous Old Madras Road near that dratted rail overbridge which forces 6 lanes of traffic into 2!

Was crawling along in stop-start traffic on the 'fast' lane (joke of the year!) and nearing the overbridge from the Whitefield side. I had just coasted to a stop and applied the handbrake (old habit) before taking my foot of the clutch and getting ready to wait for the next crawl forward.

Suddenly, WHAM and the car shook from side to side! The first thought was that I had been rear-ended. But a quick look in the rearview mirrow showed nothing. My next impulse was to check the sideview mirrors and immediately spotted the &^%$#@#@ Namme Metro (yellow and green steel barrier) lying on my car's rear door and straddling it till the taillight/boot area. Got out and heaved the damned thing off my car (quite heavy) and found a 3 inch diameter dent on the door/roofline (above C pillar/rear quarter glass) and lots of yellow/green paint and scratches. Was lucky that it had missed the door windows and also not smashed the taillight.

There wasn't much I could do. The area was full of traffic and anyway what will a Bangalore cop do except for asking me to move my car!

Anyway, a few things came to my mind:

1. A quick look at the base of the barrier showed only 4 small 'feet' with holes for attaching to a stable surface. These barriers are simply not designed for leaving free-standing especially on narrow muddy/dirty/soft medians;
2. 2 of the feet were bent anyway;
3. Thanked whoever's up there that the same did not happen at speed;
4. Thanked whoever's up there that I had not bought the Cedia Sports as it would have broken my heart even more; And it sits lower so may have suffered even mroe damage;
5. Thanked GM and Daewoo for the tough bodyshell of the Aveo :-)
6. Has something like this happend to others?
7. I am not going to claim on my insurance but if I planned to, should I have filed a FIR? And against whom :-)?

The silver lining was that once the car was washed the next morning the damage looked much less. The dent is obvious but the paint can be rubbed off (hopefully) when I go in for the 3M 'new car' treatment next month during my first service.

Will post a picture later today.

[benbsb29]

Originally Posted by itwasntme

I am not going to claim on my insurance but if I planned to, should I have filed a FIR? And against whom :-)?

Dont bother about the FIR. No one is going to accept responsibility anyways, and also all you would be doing is wasting your own sweet time.

As for claiming insurance, if there is no third party damage involved, there is no need for an FIR. Just for your info, since you wont be claiming insurance anyways.

[phamilyman]

Didn't you take a pic of the car before removing the barrier?

[dadu]

Yes that should have helped interms of bad publicity for Bglr metro, should've taken one and sent to the newspaper guys.

Originally Posted by phamilyman

Didn't you take a pic of the car before removing the barrier?

[theMAG]

Bad luck-hope to see your car back to prime. One of those frustrating things really.

[benbsb29]

Originally Posted by phamilyman

Didn't you take a pic of the car before removing the barrier?

He was in the midst of traffic, i believe. I dont think people behind would be so kind as to wait while he is clicking snaps. Knowing the area under that railway bridge, its highly clogged ALL the time.

Highly unfortunate, though. He's still looking at the positives from the incident. Commendable.

[amohit]

Something like that happened to a friend of mine. This happened at the site of our famous Airport roa flyover. At that time it was under construction(the ramp going from inner ring raod to 100ft road). This guy was on the only small lane going towards koromangala, when the steel sheet that were put there came flying off(there were unusually strong winds that day) and hit his rear windshield. He wasnt lucky and had a cracked windshield.
No FIR filed. No insurance claimed(Rich fellow..got it replaced on his own)

itwasntme, very unlucky though...just a few ft back or a few ft ahead and you woud've not even noticed the fallen barrier.

Regards,

[speedmiester]

Tough luck dude, Sorry to hear about it. Get your car fixed soon.

[beanstalk_230]

thats a really bad incident , hope you get your baby fixed up really soon
all the best

[itwasntme]

Guys,

Many thanks for advice and comments.

In hindsight could have been much much worse if it had fallen on windows or bonnet/headlights and I would have been a goner if it had suddenly fallen down in front of a fast-moving Aveo.

When I put the damn thing back onto the median I took care to try and stabilise it (to the extent possible) given that no one offered to help and I was holding up traffic in the fast lane.

Should I have taken others' help and moved it to the side of the road? Would anyone have appreciated why and helped me? Knowing Bangalore rush hour traffic, I don't think so. But maybe I should have tried?







I had some queries:

1. Could anyone give me a rough estimate what needs to be done to repair the damage?
2. Is it relatively simple to pull out the dent and repaint?
3. How much needs to be repainted such that the colour matches the factory finish?
4. Further, will a 3M (or equivalent) remove the yellow paint rub-offs totally or is that expecting too much?

[itwasntme]

Amohit,

I believe something quite similar happend to a biker somewhere on a road construction site in an Indian metro but can't remember which one.

The difference is that the poor poor guy died because the aluminium sheet sliced into his chest, and he bled to death on the spot because no one helped him in time.

Take the case of the 2 IT pros who a few weeks back in the Hyderabad flyover crash. They were pulverised by a section of the flyover which collapsed because the supporting (temporary) pillars gave way due to soil subsidence. Going to work/home in a NHC one second and crushed to death the next.

Hearing of such things make me a firm believer in Karma. If the Boss has it planned for you, no praying or wearing amulets/rings or being good to people is going to stop it :-).

In this case, I am (was?) a firm believer in crawling (only in bumper to bumper traffic of course) only in the fast lane because it gives me some respite from the swarms of bikers squeezing past my poor side mirrors, and offers one less moving object in the shape of the static median etc. How on earth could I have calculated the risk of having a stationary steel barrier falling on my car :-)?

Anyway, I am gibbering so will cease... (for now)

Originally Posted by amohit

Something like that happened to a friend of mine. This happened at the site of our famous Airport roa flyover. At that time it was under construction(the ramp going from inner ring raod to 100ft road). This guy was on the only small lane going towards koromangala, when the steel sheet that were put there came flying off(there were unusually strong winds that day) and hit his rear windshield. He wasnt lucky and had a cracked windshield.
No FIR filed. No insurance claimed(Rich fellow..got it replaced on his own)

itwasntme, very unlucky though...just a few ft back or a few ft ahead and you woud've not even noticed the fallen barrier.

Regards,

[revved_up]

Cant see bigger pics after clicking on the thumbnail..

[Wheeliej]

oh no!!! this is awful. I think you should atleast write a "letter to the editor" of one of the newspapers so that the shoddy support work at the Metro construction site can be brought to public attention. Also if you know the website of Bangalore Metro, you should forward this link to them under the 'contact us' tab. I hope you are able to bring your car back to ship-shape. A two month old car - am sure that hurts.

This is a major problem in any infrastructure development in India. If a road has to be constructed in any other country (say Singapore - i quote that since I have seen it occuring), they first construct a very good quality service road and then block the main road which is to be repaired. Once the main road construction is done, they seal the temporary road. Here, due to the amount of corruption, though such temporary road construction is in the tender and budgeted, it is given a go-bye and that money is used by the contractor to pay off the officials who conveniently look the other way. As a result the common man suffers tremendously.

For e.g., the underbridge that is in progress @ kasturinagar. The road on ORR from Banaswadi to KR Puram is in a pathetic state. Why cant that be made atleast motorable while the construction is in progress. Other elements of this bridge's construction, I must admit, were handled pretty well, we had decent quality roads, but this one stretch (which will lead to over-the-underbridge) is right now in horrible condition. Hopefully the public wont have to suffer more since the construction is supposed to be completed by Oct and the traffic jam can now shift to the next junction.

btw, Off-topic does anyone know whether a tender has actually been released for expanding that particular railway underbridge after KR Puram railway station but before Big Bazaar/Bata? The Seshadripuram underbridge took something like 3-4 years to get done. if the tender has not yet been released, then even God wont be able to save us from the daily hourly grind that it takes for people to cross across that particular underbridge. Sometimes I wonder if the local corporator/babu is mentally blind. Even a moron can see that 3 lanes on each side cannot merge into 1 lane on each side without hour long traffic jams being created.

[vkochar]

OUch !!! That must have hurt Bro !!

The thing is that you really cannot do anything here - even if you file a complaint against Metro - who is going to listen ?

If I were you - I'd at least send a pic to a newspaper and see what they could do about it. It can prevent further incidents like these where some could be Fatal also !!

Hope yr car gets reaired soon !! Cheers !!