I was coming back from my trip to pondicherry and on the Krishnagiri - Bangalore expressway was keeping speeds of between 100-140 depending on the traffic and available freeway on the road.
I crossed hilltop and we were supposed to stop at Reliance A1 palza but somehow got overlooked and the speed was 120km/h so couldnt stopped immediately too.
Far away I could see two trucks (1 eicher canter) one behind the other at close gap travelling in the rightmost lane as usual in the southern highways. I saw them from a distance and they kept their lanes which was fine.
So now I decide to overtake them, see that a slight change in level is there and the expressway has a side mounted alloy guards but still one lane free for overtaking.
I attempt to overtake them and start honking so make them aware I am coming but stop honking just a few meters before them as they both were constantly travelling in their lane.
As I approach them at a car's length to my horror the rear eicher truck suddenly attempts to overtake the bigger truck from the left and I could see his left nose starting to protuding out of the lane, no hand signal, no indicator.
I immediately brake hard and instinctively moved the steering slightly to the left to avoid a direct hit (my wifey told me speedo was at 120). Big screeching noise/ rubber burning and I guess that made the overtaking truck move back into his lane immediately.
I was concentrating on the braking, road and handling the safari and then I hear a "thud" on my left, realising that the rear gave way to the left upon hard braking and might have hit the roadside alloys guards, I let go of the brakes and immediately the rear falls back in line as if someone has lifted it put it back, I could feel it. The safari came back onto the lane and back in line.
All this happenned within a fraction of a second so I was a bit shaken at first but took control of the vehicle and we are back in line, speedo was still at 60-70 and the trucker was in his lane with no injury to anyone and seatbelts secure.
I come parallel to the trucker and now he is signalling me to go and he was driving alone so no helper to signal. The only good thing he did was to move back in his lane immediately otherwise this experience could have been fatal.
I was still trying to recover so carried on thinking that the left door is gone man and huge damages to the side.
But surprisingly look at what was the damage. Noone could believe at what the damage was, we were expecting big time damage.
Safari is definitely a safe SUV, even the cladding are intact, it scraped the plastic and the paint at some points in a straight line across the length but as fate would have it, a major one was averted. Thank you god.
Initially I thought of replacing the complete cladding under insurance but on rethinking and relooking, a touchup job might work well here.
Does anyone know/recommend a good painter in the south of city.(J.P. Ngr, jayanagar).