[rugsrags]

Im on my way back to my city and on the highway i have a swift filled with young boys following closely as if we're driving in the city. This when we're doing a good 90-100km/hr. Suddenly i notice a wagon-r driving out from a petrol pump and i see the driver casually looking down instead of the road that he's joining in at oblivious of me honking like nobody's business. I can't break with the fear of being rear ended by the swift and im sure the driver of the swift hasnt noticed the wagon r coming onto the highway blindly so im left with no option but to downshift and speed up. This is where i love the civic's free revving engine. The car pulls up nicely and i cross the danger point while giving enough space to the swift behind me to notice the wagon r for himself. Or atleast that's what i thought. I do manage getting out of harm's way but the dust i see in my rear view shows that the swift behind me was not as lucky though i do manage seeing in the rear view that the car's did avoid having a major collision.

The other menace i regularly face is of villagers and men on bikes casually strolling all across the four lane highways this side of U.P. especially the agra-kanpur stretch. On multiple occasions have had to break hard and swerve to avoid the obviously unconcerned villagers. Thank god for ABS. Its been a regular life saver for me as even speeds of 90km/hr are high enough when it comes to facing emergency situations.

The most bone-chilling experience by far for me though has been a couple of years back on the gurgaon-delhi expressway. I'd had a long day and an even longer night. Returning to delhi from gurgaon at around 4 a.m. im aware that im really sleepy the minute i start driving. I keep a mental check not to over-speed in order to get home to bed as soon as possible and at the time i had a cheverolet optra 1.8 L.T. which again had a great engine though the worst F.E. possible. I'm driving down in my sleepy state and my eyes revert down to the speedometer and notice that i'm overspeeding at around 120km/hr(its a few years back and traffic was lighter than it is now) when suddenly i see something whiz by on both sides of me. I see the rear view mirror and what i see brings me back to the most wakeful state ever. I see the head lights of two trucks between which id whizzed past with me looking at the speedometer. I guess God saved me that day and since that day iv made it a point to never drive if im sleepy ever.

Another episode again of the highway a couple of years back is when im driving down in my accord and it being a sunday the Lucknow-Kanpur highway was pretty empty. An empty truck is speeding ahead of me. Im driving sedately behind the truck since the truck itself is doing insane speeds of around 90km/hr and from my experience i know its better to maintain a big distance between a reckless truck/bus and overtake only when the stretch ahead is completely empty. So the truck is zipping across center of the two lane road and since im following casually behind i decide its time to overtake the truck and close the gap between my car and the truck. I honk and the truck maneuvers towards the left. I maneuver towards the right and suddenly out of nowhere a bike materialises coming on the opposite wrong side towards me and the truck had moved left because it had seen the bike coming while i thought he'd turned left to let me pass and hence took my car towards the right (it's a four lane highway and the bike was on the opposite side driving against the oncoming traffic). So all of a sudden the bikes nearly on top of me and i have no option but to turn the steering a bit and hope for a miracle as im at a speed of around 90-100km/hr. I see the bike rider brake hard i see my car turn slowly (superb handling of the accord) all in slow motion and i feel the side view mirror go thuk as it hits the bike'rs handlebar or bag or something and im past it. Stop my car and see the rear view mirror to see that the biker miraculously has sped off and thankfully not fallen nor hurt himself. the only evidence that this even happened is my side view mirror that has shut by the impact. A quick jab of the folding button and the side view mirror is back to its original state with nothing left to show of the episode apart from my nervous heart beat.
Sometimes i do wonder whether these people come out on the road actually looking to get killed by such mishaps.

[treadmark]

I and my wife was back from shopping this Sunday afternoon. Our street is narrow and will be filled with cars parked on either sides making it difficult for a wider vehicle to pass through. I was doing around 20 ~ 25 and to make a tight right turn into my apartment parking in the basement. As usual I was about to stick to the extreme left to get a better turning radius, I didn't want to check my left ORVM because I know for sure there is no gap even for a pedestrian. But to my surprise a guy on his Honda Unicorn whiz passed to my left over the foot path (about 3 ~ 4 inch above road surface laid with stone slabs) around 40 ~ 50. I think he overtook me from left seeing my right indicator, but why on earth these morons have to ride on foot paths on streets above 40 km/h? Oops, I forgot to mention he was not alone and he was accompanied by a young lady as pillion rider.

Lessons learned: I should look at both ORVM even if I don't have space between my car and the road shoulder irrespective of highway or small streets.

[sri2012]

Mine is the most silly thing.

It was early morning 4.30 AM we started our journey in May 2013. Me and my 2 friends were travelling to Bangalore from Chennai to meet our another friend. I was driving my WagonR. After travelling for over a couple of hours, i wanted to change the song in the music system. At this time i was doing 80-90kmph. Since my friends were taking time to change the song, i pitched in to guide them. This was the mistake i made. I was driving on the right most lane and since i lost my concentration i was about to hit the divider. Thank God i immediately checked and steered left to get the car back to the line. All our hearts skipped a beat. Yes, This was very bad on my part. I never will repeat this.

Now i ensure who ever accompanies me knows how to handle the music player. That was a very scary incident to remember.

[Jred]

This was about good ten years back in March 2003. Bangalore was calm with very less traffic. I was working in ITPL then and the outer ring road had hardly anything on either sides other than green fields or vacant land. This was pre-Eco space, intel et.al.

I had worked through the previous day and night and was coming back home to Koramangala. I was riding a Suzuki Samurai then and my colleague riding pillion. It was around 6 in the morning. Those days March was a lot cooler and with hardly anything or any one either sides it was very pleasant morning. There was this light breeze hitting my face through the slightly opened gap of my helmet. I don't remember what speed I was, don't think it would have been anything more than 60-70. I distinctly remember crossing one part of the ring road. The next thing I hear some one shouting from the opposite side of the road and waving at me - where today the ramp ends at the junction, very close to Trinity woods. I see my bike's front tyre is almost under the back of a truck. My handlebar almost hit the decorative piece covering the tail light. I steer to the right and my foot rest brushes the Truck's tyre making a squealing noise. We narrowly escaped coming under those huge wheels. I realized I had dozed off. I remember being extremely calm and composed through out. My colleague also woke up due to the hard right turn. Until we got home we didn't speak much. However I was trembling after getting home. The image send shivers through my spine. I still remember very distinctly the bike's tyre and its position. sometimes my colleague and I meet and discuss this, then laugh about it. I cannot remember where I had dozed off and how come I rode the bike through the right route and even took the correct turn towards Koramangala. Boy were we lucky ?

[Amazingandy]

Well mine was a very small incident which could have had major implications but thank God we got away in one piece......

This happened when I was driving back from Mahabalipuram, we had gone on a holiday in mid June 2013...Having recently got my new NHC I wanted to take in on a few long drives and see what it felt like as I am the adventurous sort and also get the feeling of being on the road and outdoors....Now I must admit that I was quite new to highway driving in a car though I had clocked over 35000 km on my pulsar and have done several long trips as co driver....however being a relatively safe road I decided to take the trip to Mahabalipuram via Krishnagiri and Vellore.

We had a good vacation and we were due to return the next morning and scheduled to leave at 6:00 in the morning so we would hit the main highway by 9:00 am, however thanks to a football match and packing that took way to long I had gone to sleep at 4:00 am and had just about an hour and a half of rest however I still felt fresh and decided to go as planned and leave....so we rolled out of the hotel at 6:45 am after a few cups of team and hit the chengalpettu and Kanchi route and as this was two lane i was very alert and fresh so covered the distance in 90 minutes....once we hit the main highway it was smooth going however I was observing that when turning I was under steering into the curves and sometimes there was a light drift to the vehicle, thinking this was a puncture I got down a few times and checked but all looked good...I managed to do another 60 km in this condition and reached vellore where we decided to break for breakfast...when I sat down to eat I felt the tiredness and managed a 30 minute nap while food was served......We made it back to bangalore safe and sound..However on reanalyzing what had happened I realized that I was so tired though i could see it i could not recognize it...lesson learned...sleep well before you do a long drive it is very IMPORTANT

Note from Mod : Please DO NOT type...like this...Please use proper punctuation and paragraph breaks while typing as this post becomes unreadable. Please do adher from next time. Thanks

[Mik]

Two incidents

1. Dec 2008 - I was on a Rajasthan ride on my 220. Rajasthan roads can be incredibly boring because of long undulating straights, no dogs running across and hardly any people around. On a two lane highway, I saw two trucks, one overtaking the other and going in the same direction as me. I moved across to the right to overtake the slower truck myself. Only 100 meters away, I saw 4 headlights flashing at me! My brain had read the whole situation opposite of what it was. Both the trucks were coming towards me and I was inviting more trouble by moving over to the right lane. Somehow managed to fumble across the road. Lesson learnt, constant speeds can lead to sleepiness.

2. Recently in June 2013, while descending down a jam packed road at Patnitop. Traffic was sputtering along and I was behind an Innova. Suddenly, the Innova started backing up. I honked and engaged the reverse but it was too late. He ended up giving a soft bump on my then unblemished car. My co passengers blamed me and I was flummoxed. Turns out, I had let go of the brake ever so slightly (on that downhill section) and it was me crawling to hit the Innova rather than he backing up Relativity of motion sucks!

[Divya Sharan]

Well, not related to driving, but I had one terrible experience while riding.
3 friends on 3 bikes decided to do a trip to Ooty from Bangalore and return on the same day.
To keep the trip entertaining, we modified the route as:
Bangalore-Mysore bypass-Ooty-Mettupalayam-Sathyamangalam-Chamarajanagar-Kollegal-Bangalore.
This meant riding over 700 kms in one day. We were all game for it.

We reached Ooty, did some sight-seeing and proceeded towards Sathyamanagalam when I felt drowsy. I asked other riders to stop to know they felt the same. Plus, the roads were only ghat section. We stopped after a while and rested for about 30 min.
But that wasn't enough!
We were somewhere near Chamarajanagar and it was 9 PM already with a lot of kms to cover to reach Bangalore (next day was Monday), we increased our speeds to 70ish. Roads were stark empty. But, it was completely dark, no lights on the road or nearby.
I started feeling sleepy again. Then it happened. I was trailing behind other two riders by about 50 odd meters when I closed my eyes for a couple of seconds and bam!
I was running at 65ish in a straight ditch!
Somehow managed not to fall and brake. My sleep had vanished. Gave my friends a call and they came back. I could finally see the area around from their headlights. I had missed a curve and rather went straight and jumped into a 8-10 feet deep ground full of stones. Maybe it was an agricultural land or something.
But I was safe and so was the bike. Nothing got damaged. I thanked my stars and rode back home at a sedate speed.
Vowed not to ride again if I feel sleepy. Though my endurance levels have increased now and I have done 1000 kms in a day, but I never ride without taking ample amount of sleep before hand.

[::CMS::]

Recently on my way back from Kerala, this happened at the new bypass road near chalakudy. It was a rainy day. I stopped the wiper on seeing the rain was over. I was overtaking an ACE, didnt notice a small collection of water at the right side of the road and on passing it, to my surprise the entire windshield was covered with water and I was blind for a few seconds. I was moving ~80s and I could feel a lightning through my body on seeing another car in my RVM and remembering an ACE at my left side and no idea about the road ahead. In the shock I couldnt start the wiper on time also. Somehow I managed to slowdown and in between I could open the side window to see the road.

Lesson : Never ever try to overtake without a clear idea about the road esp after raining.

[nishantdlv]

Hey CMS! Something similar had happened with me last month!
I had been to my native place in the konkan for ganpati festival. On my way back to mumbai, I was in kashedi ghat at ~7pm. It was getting dark and was raining heavily! I had an Innova in front of me and was following her for quite a while. I decide to overtake her, took a glimpse of oncoming traffic and there was none.
Feeling confident, I started to overtake slowly keeping in mind its a ghat with all the crazy curves. I was by her side and noticed a puddle of muddy water!! It got me full blind and through it I sensed two lights emerging from a curve ahead! I had no option but to revv hard and pass because I had a car behind me! Quickly squeezed in and the car in front just passed!
There was a pin drop silence after that for a minute. Was a close call!

[Surprise]

Originally Posted by saket77

Although you have learnt the lesson, but I re-iterate- Trust only your eyes, not the judgement of the guy ahead.

Drive Safe folks!

Regards,
Saket

Agreed you should have clear view while overtaking a vehicle. Sometimes, I tag behind a bus overtaking a lorry and go ahead of lorry, esp on single lane highways with regular oncoming vehicles. Usually these buses are on higher speed comparatively and as they are in the process of completion, u can squeeze in between without a sweat.

[Countache]

A couple of years ago on the Mumbai Pune expressway in the first tunnel on the way to Lonavala, i felt the tunnel lighting itself went all Dim as soon as i entered the tunnel and started suffering from sort of tunnel vision to the extent that i began to freak out wondering what was going on and i was doing all i could to just keep safe distance from the tail lights ahead and maintain speed at the same time since the guy behind me was practically tailgateing my vehicle, my wife who was in the passenger seat was also scared wondering what i was going on about the tunnel being so dim and tunnel vision and all, when she happened to glance at me and with a straight face and to my utter embarassement says to me "perhaps it would help if you remove your sunglasses" which i promptly did and and behold it was bright as day in the tunnel, the sunglasses which were Maui Jim fantastic sunglasses i might add especially for driving were so light i forgot i had them on. Anyways the incident left me wondering wether reminders to knock off sunglasses before entering tunnels and also warnings against tailgateing should be posted on entrance to the expressway and the tunnel

[rpads1]

Slept while driving. Happened to me on the 29th. We started late from Bangalore to Perambalur (near trichy) due to School PTM and other stuff and by the time we were nearing destination felt sleepy around midnight. I should have stopped and washed my face and had some tea, but since destination was just 20 kms away, thought will finish the ride. Plus wife and kids were fast asleep so thought might as well continue. Never underestimate. I think I slept off for a couple of seconds, car would have drifted to right for 200 mtrs, and then went off-road , 2 feet below , onto fields just ploughed. Woke up in time due to the rumbling but, not sure if it was the braking or the soft just ploughed soil that stopped the car. Got down inspected and saw not much damage. Managed to drive another 100 mtrs, and take a ramp up to the road. Really lucky , no major damage, except the car front bumper and the left wheel which got dented way badly causing a flat in the tubeless. Changed tyres and was good to go . The wheel denting costed 50 bucks. Put the car for car wash, and while on the ramp inspected underside, the bumper fixings had all ripped off from underneath, otherwise just a scratch on the oil sump.
On the way back inspected the accident spot , pretty scary , could have hit any oncoming traffic or a pole nearby. Now need to go to service center and get the bumper replaced and double check underbody from the service guys.
Lesson learnt, when sleepy dont risk it, take a break , coffee or a short 15 min, nap and proceed only if sure .

[bhardwhu]

Sleepy at Wheels -this happened when I had to attend a friend's sister wedding in Palampur, Himachal. I started driving in my Alto from Delhi at about 2200 and reached 50 kilometers short of destination early morning 0430. I had taken a coffee break fifteen minutes prior to this juncture and yet, I dozed off on a left bending incline with a deep gorge on to my right. The left of the road incidentally had a mountain wall and I was doing about 40 kmph. Suddenly I was woken up from that small but horrible drowsy state, by hearing metal smashing on my left. Car skidded against the hill and the front wheel got badly misaligned. The front fender was gone and apparently it was a structural damage, as I realized later. Luckily, me and my fellow passenger were safe and I could get help from friend immediately. The car was sold subsequently as i realized it had lost the structural rigidity.

Lessons learnt - expensive repairs ( >10000) and more importantly, never to drive if there is a slight hint of sleepy or weary feelings. I have absolutely abstained from morning 0300-0600 hrs driving times since then. I do prefer driving in nights though but not in the stated interval where I have observed higher concentration lapses.

[gsurya]

This was 3 years ago.

We were on a holiday in Switzerland & returning to Zurich at night after a long tiring day. My brother-in-law was driving, I was beside him, his wife & mother in the rear seat, with a kid.

I was also a bit drowsy but tried to keep awake; somewhere in my drowsy brain I felt the car drifting to the right; I jerked awake watched my bro-in-law had also dozed off & car was just about to crash into the barrier.

I quickly grabbed the wheel & swerved the car back to the road & almost smashed into a truck, narrowly missing it.

Bro-in-law was truly shaken; Mom-in-law hysterical but alls well that ended well.

Moral of the story: Sleep kills. Not just in Nightmare on Elm Street

[TorqueyTechie]

Two incidents which made me to be very aware and careful!!

1. This was in 2009. Was driving to pondicherry from bangalore along with my friends. I was driving my friends indica and it was late in night. We were all enjoying the drive and it was around 10 in the night. In that street since no other cars were there, my friends dared me to switch off the headlights and drive and me being foolish at that time complied and switched off the headlights and was driving in utter darkness. Must have drove for half a kilometer when suddenly I got back to my sense and switched on the headlights and immediately saw a drunk man lying with half his body on the road. Swerved hard to the right and missed him. Stopped the car went back and checked he was just dozing with the heavy drinking. Took him to side of the road under a tree and left from that place still shaking on what I could have done. Never ever would I do that again.

2. Back here in US, we all friends were returning from pittsburg and I was the only driver who had license. One of my friend was driving and I was sititng next to her and guiding her. For all who dont know, in pittsburg there is a temple in which you get good food as well. So we all had nice food from there and because of that and the freeways being boring in US I had dozed off. I got woken up because of my friends in the backseat screaming. What I saw was that my friend who was driving was trying to overtake a truck but she got scared and was trying to steer the vehicle mad and we were about to hit the truck and lot of vehicles behind her. I caught hold of the steering asked her to push the accelerator. We overtook the truck and then asked her to take an exit and stop. Again a mistake from my side for not being alert!!