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-   -   Tragic News: Gopinath Munde passes away in road accident (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/road-safety/151648-tragic-news-gopinath-munde-passes-away-road-accident-8.html)

It is sad that a VIP dying jolts the system into action,not regular civilians. Shame.
Meantime, I read women are still protesting, wanting exemption from wearing helmets(?).

Education is more important than Fear.

Benefit of wearing Seat Belts should be hammered into the mind. If a particular city has strict traffic checking, Driver / Passengers would wear seat belts within the city, but would not do so out of the same town.

We have all discussed a lot on Seat Belts, but small children in standing next to windshield or in the laps of front seat Passenger is toooooo common. At least I have not seen anyone in India using a Crib to seat kids properly restrained.

This needs more of education than enforcing rules.

Amrik Singh

Folks, I read the Mumbai edition of The Free Press Journal at the airport today and it also clearly highlights the importance of rear seat belts. Here are certain pics of the article and a important statement by Shri Harshvardhan.







Thanks.

The picture you have quoted in your post is basis of the poor design part I talked about , There is hardly any damage to the SX4 and that is the reason impact energy broke the spinal chord at 2 places as per post-mortem report.

My intention was not to deride anybody's favourite ride but the NCAP ratings talk about frontal impact and sideimpact with Airbags the models in India are bare-bone and here basic shell design and crumble zones becomes more important.

As I wrote before I was in a Airport Taxi ( Logan) with similar accident with more momentum ( loaded water tanker) but the outer shell collapsed and I felt a hard zolt with sever sprain in neck. I was also not wearing seat belts but after this incidence always wear seatbelts in Airport taxis.

Well Saket you need to check if SX4 outside India is same as SX4 here and also do they get NCAP rating with curtain airbags removed ?

Check reason for my belief above I think a car whose body shell absorbs the energy and has good crumble zone is safer.

I am not sure what the physical condition of the minister was. We are speculating more about the car than this. Was he leaning too much on the door since it was on the left side and the driver being on the right side, he would be more comfortable on the left side.

With the Indica, it could have hit the SX4 more on the running board (taking SX4's height into account) and hence we dont see much damage and also could not have absorbed the impact. Does anyone have the picture of the Indica?

I am not also not sure about how crumple zones work on sides of the car. It would be the complete shell absorbing the impact. Its different from frontal crumple zones. Not sure if airbags could have protected given that he was not wearing seat belt.

In my opinion, there is no outer shell on sides of cars to take the impact energy. This is possible only in frontal and rear impacts. Sides of a car have beams to prevent the car caving in and save the occupants as much as possible.

Also, curtain airbags can prevent injuries but will have little impact on sudden sideways body movement that caused the spinal chord snapping. This can be prevented only by the seat belts.

+1. It's the sudden movement which actually snapped the spinal cord. This excessive sudden movement could have been arrested by the seat belt. Also, in such a T bone, he must have been tossed around in the car hurting him further. Putting on seat belts could have surely helped.

One more thing I would like to add. Rear passengers should also put on seat belts all the time while traveling because even if the front passenger & driver are wearing seatbelts, even then the tossing around of the rear passenger in case of sudden impact can severely injure the front passengers who are wearing a seat belt. So, passengers not belted become a hazard for even the belted passengers, more so in a frontal crash or even a sudden braking too.

I believe each one of those who resist wearing a helmet or a seat-belt should do a self-talk - something like -

"A helmet is for MY protection."

"A Seatbelt is for MY protection."

"If I die in an accident due to lack of any of the above, MY family suffers."

"If I come out alive from an accident due to lack of any of the above, with a broken limb or a permanent disability, MY family suffers."

"When MY family and I are the sole beneficiaries / victims of MY decision, then why do I need a law or policeman to teach me that? It is MY responsibility to wear a helmet / buckle up because that decision will affect me and MY family the most!"

While talking about crumble zones, one look at the photo of Munde's SX4 in this same thread shows that the vehicle has bull bars fitted on the front and equivalent ones on the sides as well. Did the bull bar take the impact (the bar appears intact though) and fouled with the crumble zone of the car? Perhaps if not for the bull bar, the side doors may have crumbled more?

Bull bar would be effective if it comes in the way of a structural member of the other car. In this case, since the bar is positioned very low, it would come in the way of the bumper of the indica and probably would lift up the indica on its bumper.

But the actual impact took between the doors of the car and the radiator cross member of the indica. Hence there is little role of the bar underneath the door would be very minute.

Another question is : Does a minor accident (involving a VIP fatality) really require CBI enquiry whereas there are number of other major crimes (involving commoners) pending ?

In my books, any accident that involves a fatality is a major accident. In any case, I couldn't see the connection you made - are you saying that there are other major crimes involving commoners waiting for CBI enquiry? You should know that CBI cannot on its own decide to investigate a case - it has to be asked to, by either a court or by the state government (the latter rarely does this, since usually this holds a mirror to the inadequacy and incompetence of their own state police force, and they cannot arm-twist the CBI as they like).

In this particular instance I imagine the call is for CBI to investigate if there is a conspiracy angle, and not the accident itself. I personally think such an investigation should be made, for various reasons that I don't care to list out here (they are political and generally avoidable in a friendly forum like T-BHP. :-)

Anyway, I came here to post this article:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/a...w/36576577.cms

It is not enough to simply wear the seat belts, they need to be tightened too.

Toady's news about CBI filing charge sheet in case of accident and death of Gopinath Munde raises a question in my mind.

From all recounts of news when the accident took place it was more or less clear that it was ministers car that jumped the red light.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-...1-1293200.aspx

Even now the CBI Chargesheet tries to evade the real question of who jumped the red light and talk of frontal vision and ignoring red beacon etc. (in print paper today's HT)

Is it because the taxi driver is a common man that he is being held guilty?? Not convinced.

Other sources.
Google: https://www.google.co.in/webhp?sourc...de+chargesheet

TOI: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/i...w/45378086.cms

Is it because the taxi driver is a common man that he is being held guilty?? Not convinced.

agree:
Agree with Sukhdev.
Am anguished at reading this news. Where is Mr Munde's driver statement. Initial coverage did hint at Mr Munde's car jumping red light, which is very common in our VIP culture.
The guilty should be punished, whatever rank, post or stature.

If his (the taxi driver) advocate is a good one, he will fight on that ground.