[Surprise]

Guys,

Majority of the guys/gals here out in this forum are car enthusiastic. They love to be behind the wheels as much as possible. We put forward all our bad experiences with other vehicles involved in street experiences column , where in most of the post are mistakes from the other end.

Here come out honestly and admit the mistake you have committed in your driving experience ( atleast the one you remember). Even the one without involving any third parties ex. I scratched my car on the lamp post while reversing my car.

Just wanted to find out one's bad experience and their reaction after that incident.

[DCEite]

Well one day while stopping at a signal, i banged a stationary AutoRikshaw from behind in CP near janpath. Though the impact was at a very slow speed, but it was due to my own misjudgment of bonnet length. Anyways, i apologized to him.

Another one happened during the early days when i was still learning to drive (mind you i was 19 then). There i banged a stationary car (dont remember exactly which car was it) while reversing in parking lot of Nehru Place. It was my bumper which hit against his door. There was a small dent on his door, and scratch on my bumper too. Since the owner of that car was not around, i ran away .

[Thad E Ginathom]

A van stops in the slow-moving traffic on the main road to let me pull in front and turn right accross him. As I do so, a motorbike overtakes the van, comes accross me, and I miss him by mm.

The two (yes I'm afraid so) accidents I've had when I've been looking for danger coming from one way and I should have looked the other. Both deeply embarrassing.

Those come from several decades of UK driving. Since I've been driving in India they just seem too numerous to keep track of...

[rks]

In Bangalore, 2001. Qualis brakes hard, unnecessarily hard (have learnt to be cautious while following a Qualis and subsequently, Innova). Indica rear-ends Qualis at about the same time my Maruti 800 rear ends Indica. Slow speeds, about 40-50 kmph as we were accelerating out of a signal. Indica guy maintains that he stopped in time, but I pushed him on to Qualis. Hard to tell, though, as the collisions happened almost at the same time. I was talking to my colleague and did not react quickly enough. Would have been tough to stop in time even if I did. Minor damage to my Maruti, hardly any damage to Indica and even less to Qualis.

On the way back to Pune from Mumbai in 2005, Satara road. A bus slows down in front of my Santro to stop at a signal. I decide to cut to the right of the bus at the very last moment. Apparently the bus guy stopped a fraction earlier than I expected and my front left door scrapes the rear bumper of the bus. No damage to bus, dent on my door repaired. I put this down to a rare concentration lapse on my part, probably due to deep fatigue.

In 2002, Indira Nagar, Bangalore, light rain. I lose my patience, cut in front of a school-boy cyclist on the left edge of the road and slow down to turn left, putting on my indicator. School boy fails to negotiate his way past my Santro and his handle bar hits my rear above the right parking light. Slight dent, not repaired. Should not have made that overtake, should not have made the school boy brake. That was the only time I have ever been rear-ended in 32 years of driving.

[subscrive]

I incidence that scared the cr@p was with my friend.
We had parked the car in the parking of some mall.
I misgudged the gap and parked such that the car was bit nearer to a Ford SUV.
My friend opened the rear door with full enthu and that SUV had a big dent. Paint also got removed.
Donno how he managed. Man! That dent was quite visible and so was non-paint area.
We didnt know the USA laws regarding this and the mere thought of all the paperwork was damn scary.

The other incidence was when we had to take some exit and I just didnt see the board. Saw it just in time.
I was 3 lanes to left and the 7 PM traffic in the city was bad! Man, just gave the right indicator, Indian style and just zoomed past the 3 lanes.
There was an old lady who was so very pissed off!
She got the taste of Indian style. Haa haa!

This again takes me the the question... how come I could accelerate so much in AT?
The acceleration was gr8! I just dont believe that ATs have less pickup than manuals.
But on inclinations, one really needs to know how to change gears on AT by purposely tapping the brakes gently.


And the best was when my friend took the car, indian style on the left side.
Video at
orkut - Login

[amitoj]

hehe... was driving down the Casa Piccola road once in my zen, cruising slowly and checking out the scenery when a police amby brakes hard in front of me. I didnt realise there was dirt on the road so even after applying brakes, i skidded right into the amby's tail. My headlight was gone... hood and fender got slight damage! The amby's driver got out... there wasnt even a scratch on that car. I apologised. And then he asks me "you want to go lodge a complaint?" I was like "what??? against who? myself??... thank you but no thank you Sir!"

Drove straight to the garage after that, mentally kicking myself a thousand time.

[sammyboy]

Was a part of an incident once - I was returning home late at night with a friend in his car . He tried to overtake a tryck from the left and didnt notice a cyclist in front of him till the last minute when i made him realise it ..this guy panics and instead of breaking swerved the car to the right trying to cut between the cyclist and the truck ...no go , the rear end of the car clips the truck and is thrown perpendicular to the truck which then hits the car bang on the right side dragging us helplessly for a few meters .Nothing we could do but pray the car doesnt get squished or overturnes .Thankfully those things didnt happen . The truck driver stops and we get out of the car ,the right side of the 800 is gone , both doors ,glass shattered .

The truck driver runs to us and almost starts crying . It wasnt his fault so i just tell him to relax and go ..he is so shocked ,he cant believe it

Thankfully the car was still drivable so drove home in silence ,thanking our stars

[GTO]

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

A couple of years back, I alongwith some business associates had gone to Nasik. The original plan was to complete our work and return the next day. However, I received a call from my office late evening, and my staff informed me that I just had to be back at work early next morning.

"No problem" I said and hopped into the Vtec after dinner to drive back to Bombay. BIG MISTAKE. I had already had an early morning (woken up at 4 a.m.) and a lot of field trips in the hot sun which left me exhausted. Within an hour of driving, I was sleepy. So sleepy that I could just see my reflex times suffering significantly. Thankfully, the mistakes were not major enough to cause an accident but I was very close.

Pulled up into a Dhaba and paid the owner a "parking charge". I put the air-con on and had a couple of hours of sound sleep. Refreshed with the rest and a cup of ultra-strong dhaba tea, I drove back to Mumbai safely early next morning.

Lesson learnt. No rest = No highway driving. Under any circumstances.

[speedmiester]

was on my way to bangalore from goa. Found a volvo going at a blistering speed down the highway. With friends backing me up i was compelled to overtake it.
But that guy was too quick, still kept up behind him. A bus was stopped in front of us. Volvo overtook it, but i couldn't as there was a car approaching from the other side.
Had to stop behind it. Impatient that i was tried to take a quick swerve past the bus, didn't judge it properly, scratched the left side door and my mirror assembly went bust, so did the window gap in the front passenger side door. Stopped my car to check for the damage, kicking myself. Not much damage except for scratches and left hand side mirror.

Learnt a big lesson that day "Never fall into the encouraging words of your passengers and overstep your limit"

[kkdelhi]

The one mistake that I have done quite a few times is 'presuming' that I can just scrape past through the centre in-between two parked vehicles, and I have got my car scratched every time.

It is worse when you are trying to go past a cycle-rikshaw. You never know which way they will turn. And, with all those long metals jutting out of their sides, it feels scary at times.

[Mack]

Here's mine : I was on my yearly pilgrimage (third) to Goa last Diwali season. Suzuki Fiero 2001 carrying with me and my better half and a huge haversack of approx. 25 kg loaded with luggage (which included 6 bottles of assorted liqour and a 3 litre wine can ). We were driving back to Pune after a 4 day long rejuvenating stay full of fish, cocktails and *other* Goan specialities. A friend was also riding solo on his Unicorn along with us.

We come close to a toll booth somewhere near Kolhapur and it being a bike, an attendant signals us to bypass through the leftmost lane. I slow down from approx 60 to 30 kmph and enter the lane. Just when I pass the booth, I realise a little too late that a few concrete blocks which were meant to demarcate the lane were lying haphazardly right in my tracks. I tried braking hard keeping my bike straight since I couldn't swerve and miss, but couldn't do well enough. Finally, I did hit one block and dragged it a few metres along with my bike. In a few seconds, I have completely stopped and I am now shaking with anger, much more than fear. I check my bike first, see that somehow only the crash bar and the gear shift were slightly bent, much to my relief. Then checked if my wife was all right - a little shaken up, but fine. Miraculously, no one was hurt (AXN amazing videos commentary!), we didn't fall and get hurt. Still furious, I park my bike, walk to the people and give them a piece of my mind - yelling at them and threatening to lodge a police complaint for negligence. The person who signalled us to drive through was missing (Helps to wear RayBan shades, military fatigue cargos and leather shoes). They were apologetic and I didn't press further. Then we got to the tea stall close by, and had a smoke to calm our nerves. Thanked heavens for helmets (heavens and hell-mates?? ).

Conclusion : I had let my guard down for only a few seconds and that had nearly led us into an accident (though it may not have been that serious, but with concrete roads and blocks, you never know). That was the mistake on my part. Always be alert and don't take anything for granted.

[Thad E Ginathom]

... in-between two parked vehicles, and I have got my car scratched every time.

Isn't it more to the point that you must have scratched somebody else's car? !!!!!

[shailu]

I was driving back home late night with couple of beers inside and there in front of me is a brand new merc. i was following the merc in my 800 and suddenly the merc stops in a junction to take a "u" turn(thanks to power brakes) and unfortunatly my 800 did not have one(power brake). I did not hit him hard but unfortunatly everything in merc's rear fall off... this guy from the merc gets down comes to me and catches my collar and shouts at me to get down off my car. This gentlemen also finds out that i was under influence of liquer and takes out his mobile to call the police. still sitting inside my car i request him not to call the police ( i hate going behind bars) and told him to park his car in the side of the road since we were blocking the traffic. He agrees and took his car which was blocking me and drove to the left side of the road...and that was it...i became michel shumacher and my 800 became ferrari and i started running away... i was driving so furiously i did not even see my rear view mirror to check weather he was chasing me or not. i come back home get firing from my dad and i really felt bad for my car and also for the gentlemen who was driving the merc...

[humyum]

Dont know what was i thinking when i tried to cut in between two rickshaws on the thane mumbai highway from the left most lane to the right lane at 120+ some years back.I still remember this incident very well as at that speed i could read the bank name from which the rickshaw guy had taken a loan and brough the rickshaw.The cars bonnet came that close to banging against the left most rick.Thinking about it now scares the S*** out of me

[sammyboy]

Just read this somewhere : This girl just turns 18 ,gets her learning lisence and takes the car for a spin . Somewhere along the way she brushes against a taxi . The taxi guy starts screaming at her . She coolly gets out of the car and says , " Aage L peeche L bola na sorry " and drives off leaving the driver in a state of awe .