Team-BHP - Concentration lapse while driving

I had once narrowly escaped hitting a scorpio in my conti in front of Marriott Juhu because I was distracted :D Wasn't really a major incident.

Sometime in Jan this year I had a very narrow escape. I had had a week of very little sleep and then took a trip from Mumbai to Mahabaleshwar and back. Reached Mumbai around 11 pm and then decided to visit a friend in Kandivali after a trip to Powai, middle of the night on the western express highway I fell asleep at the wheel. Thankfully my passenger realized it only when I started to drift across the highway. I still shudder to think what might have happened had I not had a passenger. Only incident where I have fallen asleep at the wheel.

Minor lapses of concentration do happen once in a while but no incidents till date, thankfully.

Y'day a small incident happened while I was moving on a sub urban road near Sohna. There was a traffic jam near Sohna round-about, caused by trucks, tractors & slow moving things like carts. I was moving behind a truck & a tractor. The traffic was crawling sometimes moving at 25 Km/ hr & this was happening for about one km. While crawling at about 15 km/hr, for a moment, I moved my eyes off the road & looked for my mobile on the console, it was not there, I looked at front seat & it was there under the small towel; Just looking at the mobile, I was suddenly distracted as my car hit something with a bang. I saw the glass pieces of LHS head light flying in the air. The LHS of car had hit the big rear tyre of the Tractor moving in front.

The Tractor driver glaced at me with a questionable face. The traffic jam had cleared & the truck behind which I was moving had gone ahead. God saved me because my Zen could have easily gone inside the rear of truck even at 15 - 20 km/ hr.

I knew, it was my fault & the damage was to my car only, so moved on without getting out of car. Stopped at the destination & saw the damage. It was only the clearance side lamp & indicator glass in the bumper which had broken.

Moral of the Story: Always pull your car safely to the side & then only search for the things.

I can Recall, i was driving down with a old friend of mine. We were meeting after a while so lot of things to share. I was on wheels.

We were so much in to talks that at one of signal, we could recognize that signal is green and we need to move on.

Honking from stranded cars put us back on back track though !

Quote:

Originally Posted by GTO (Post 508681)

Nice thread, Surprise! This is one that thankfully didnt turn into something nasty...but has taught me a lesson for life.

Remembered another one.

For the 6 months that I drove the lousy 1.8 ISZ swap job in my Jeep, the petrol smell was overwhelming on the inside. One particular evening after work, I was driving home on Marine Drive at about 8 p.m. Suddenly, and this is the only time in my life that I have come close to fainting, my vision blurred to the point of zero. I immediately pulled over to the left and sat on the ocean bench for about 15 minutes to regain my composure....was simply too dazed. Took the doors off and rolled up the rear cover so that the petrol smell wouldn't get to me.

This was the turning point of my Jeep's life. I accepted then & there that there is no way this 1.8 swap would work, and the only way out was a Mahindra diesel. About 1.5 years later, the 2.5 diesel happened and there's been no looking back :)

This happened 8 years back in my hometown. I had taken my mom to the market in my dad's Ford Escort 1.8 D. After her shopping, we get into to the car & I start reversing out of the parking slot. Suddenly out of nowhere, a guy comes and asks me to buy lottery tickets from him. I get pissed off and and ask him to move on. That guy doesn't let go and comes towards my mom and begs her to buy one ticket. My mom feels sorry for that guy and asks me to buy one. I was still adamant and started moving my car back, then suddenly the lottery guy throws a ticket into the car and asks for money.

This is where I lost concentration, I get really angry and start shouting at him without realising that the car is still moving in reverse. Suddenly the car comes to a stop with small sound. When I get down and see, I've hit a Daewoo Cielo which was passing by, on it's rear door. :Frustrati

Luckily, that car belonged to a friend of an acquaintance of my dad and he agreed to let me go without paying for it. A small dent happened to the Cielo, but only the paint rubbed on my to car's bumper. Not to mention that my dad gave me an earful later on.:D

On the highways if you have slow moving vehicles on your leftside,
and steering through the on coming vehicles in the opposite direction you tend to have a concentration lapse, on the slow moving vehicle.
One can say that you would "forget" the the slow moving bycycle fellow or even motors cycle rider.
The danger is while maneuvering through the oncoming vehilces you might hit the slow moving vehicle, the chances shall be high if it an 'S' shaped turn through the maze of oncoming vehicles.

The concentration lapse will be more if someone on your side seat constantantly
talks. Or you speak on mobile phone. It is extremely dangerous on the highway than in the city drive.

The concentration lapse also happens if the highway is stright and there is no traffic for a long time.
Quite many times I almost "forgot" the slow moving on the left and recovered on the last minute.

The other day was heading to work, and on an empty stretch, leading up to the traffic signal. So I decide to stretch my legs and accelerated. I was concentrating on the signal to see if it turns red and was not eyeing the road, because it (seemed) empty! What i didnt realize was that the innova guy ahead of me who I was about to pass suddenly stopped short in the middle of the road, beacuse some had dropped their helmet (wonder why he wasnt wearing it!). I would have rear ended the left side of his bumper and I was doing a good 60km/hr and accelerating. I barely had split second and a metre or so to work with, and I had to shift attention from the signal, to the road, and swerve to the left to avoid hitting him. Boy that was a close one! Since then Ive realized its just not right to lose concentration on Indian roads for even a split second.

This might come as a surpise, but on my 1st long ride, mumbai - shirdi - mumbai, while coming back, i was riding in the dark and the oncoming headlights and the constant drone of the trucks put me off to sleep.

Its purely because of the bull I did not fall off, and then i got over a big bump that woke me up.

I stopped the bike then and there, sat next to the highway caught a little nap :) and then rode on back home.

cheers,
ac

After dinner at The Roost in Mysore we were heading back home in an open top MM Classic, I ran over a median and rolled the vehicle to its side. My friend from the passenger side was missing as he flew out through the open roof, he did eventually emmerge out of the bushes and we pushed the jeep back on to iys legs.
I was not able to see the divider.I usually drive woth the seat pushed to its maximum and the mirror got in my way.

two incidents. both during my medical college life
1. First . coming after a night duty on back home. slept while waiting at the red-light for 5 mins in paharganj area around 10AM. was awakened by passers-by and honking of cars behind.
2. after a hard day at emergency was returning home at around 10: 30 PM. i was driving alone, and it happened momentary i slept at a bend and the suddenly the wheels were touching the divider. but luckily, there was no accident or roll over and i recovered in time. this happened on the inner ring-road near shustra trauma center (near IP college)

I was with my father in our cielo travelling from trivandrum to alleppey,night 11 pm and we had our dinner too.The A/C was off and the night cool air was having a good time running into the car.There is a series of curves near chathanoor and the roads were really good.I always liked to take those curves as it was the only major curve in the sretch.Some how i slept off just before the curve and i dont know for how loong and on opening my eyes the scene in front was that i was travelling straight and was about to miss it completely and lounge into the side crevice.Some how i managed to steer it out of danger.I would never forget that night as i had always believed that i would never sleep off in the night when i was driving.Now i am more cautious regarding the same.

ram

Luckily did not experience any Damages on streets till date in my 4Yr driving experience.
Couple of years ago scratched left side bonnet on my Esteem while parking inside my house, was bit overconfident did not see the left side gap between the car and the gate.
Well the scratch was very minor, managed to get it fixed.