[djs]

May the departed souls rest in peace and everyone else recovers fully ! As pointed earlier, there seems to be an issue with Highway construction. And Seatbelts are a must, always.
Is not wearing seatbelts the reason why curtain airbags were not deployed or just the frontal crash ?



And Google Maps 3D view shows elevation variation which may have hindered visibility of driver.

[Ankur@VNS]

Originally Posted by djs

As pointed earlier, there seems to be an issue with Highway construction.

It seems that misalignment of lane demarcation line might have caused some confusion. High speed of vehicle and slight turn before the bridge also caused some visual illusion which might have impaired the situational awareness of driver which led to this tragic head-on collision.

Overall, this is very unfortunate and shocking incident.

[supermax]

Originally Posted by sunilch

May the departed Souls RIP and the injured recover soon.
Rear-seat passengers wearing the seatbelt is simply the rarest of the rare etiquette followed not just in India but globally. .

The reverse is true here, in Sweden, where the rarest of rare cases are of people who don't belt up in a car, back seat or front. For passengers below the age of 15, if they fail to wear a seatbelt, the driver is directly held responsible, and for passengers older than 15, they are themselves responsible. Fines can be eye-watering if caught without the seatbelt on, but nobody wears belts due to the fear of fines, and instead wear it because commonsense prevails, for the most part. I do know of other Indian families here too, who treat the seatbelt statute as a suggestion, but I simply refuse to start unless all of my passengers are belted in.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Rear seat belt reluctance. It is far from limited to India.

I had a friend in London who practically refused to wear seat belts in the rear seat, even though they had become a legal requirement. The reasons, I guess, are common to many, world wide. She had no clue about the dynamics of travelling at 50kph. She thought that the front seat backs would cushion her safely: I was disillusioned on this one by an ex-cop colleague who told me about picking bits of human out of the steel frame. She could not drive; she had no interest in cars. She certainly wouldn't have ever read any of the commonly available descriptions of what happens to people in a car in an accident.

Many drivers don't know. Many are not that interested: perhaps some prefer not to know.

People don't know. But people, starting with my friend, don't like to admit not knowing, or worse, they think they do know what happens. They are firm that their body being gently and safely buffered by the seat in front is the reality of what would happen. They don't like to hear about what does happen.

For some reason, dynamics that ought to be intuitive are not. People do not even consider that the speed at which the vehicle suddenly halts is the speed at which they keep on going and hit whatever, or whoever is in front of them. Frankly, I guess I can remember not realising that.

Do any of us? Frankly, the stuff that does happen, especially to an unbelted passenger is so horrible it's almost enough to put us off cars! I have to say, I do not remember details, and nor do I want to. But I'm glad that I did get educated about it. It's nightmare stuff; we do not want to contemplate it; but we all should read it up at least once in our lives and make sure it affects us appropriately.

[Poitive]

A humble and able man gone too soon.

~~~~~~~~

Looking at the pictures two things stand out:
1. The cabin integrity does not seem majorly compromised.
2. The front has not crumpled to take in the impact, and much would have been transferred to the cabin.

This would likely be due to it being like a small-overlap crash, and in this context a part of the video below become relevant. It talks about how since moderate impact is tested, cars tend to fare well, and for small impact some fare well and some don't, as many manufacturers haven't designed for this.

Said part from 2:40 to 3:10

https://youtu.be/bAGQpMMxatg?t=160

It is a 2013 video and some things might have changed since.

Reminds me of this post:

Originally Posted by Poitive

...The tests are done at certain speeds, with impacts to certain parts, in certain ways. It is standardized as it should be. Since this has a lot of selling potential, it is reasonable to assume that manufacturers will focus more on acing these tests, and that might not be the true reflection of their safety. In some sense, it could be like the student who figures out what to study for an exam and aces it vs another who might be a lot better but not as exam focused. Exams/ratings while do serve a purpose are hardly truly representative of safety, which IMO is quite personal and subjective...

A passenger side small-overlap crash video of the GLC:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3nOnoxs7MM

A 37 second clip of unbelted rear passengers in a frontal crash. This might be close to what happened.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lghzH_UdxSk

This might be enough to get many to wear a seat belt in the rear bench (including me).

Keep safe.

[rkv_2401]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Rear seat belt reluctance. It is far from limited to India.

Forget rear seat belt reluctance, I've had a hard enough time convincing anyone who isn't a family member to wear their seat belt while sitting in the front seat. The most I can do is wear it myself, and some people's cars (particularly cabs) don't even have a rear seat belt!!

[tbppjpr]

Mr. Arun Kumar from senior level management of Bajaj Auto also died a few years ago along with his wife in their BMW crash where it seemed that he and his wife were wearing the seatbelts but their kids sitting at rear weren't.

Pictures of front seats explain the situation:-

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/road-...ml#post4013868


Co-incidentally the roads section here again seem to be having similar ditches found on the accident spots of Mr. Cyrus Mistry's and BHPian Frontosa.

Seems like something is technically wrong on the Maharastrian highways containing such ditches where road surface level, angle of the ditch walls and white line marking may not be scientifically suitable for high speed driving.

This is just my speculation since I haven't driven on these roads, maybe some experienced traveler on these roads sections can comment further details.

[TheHelix0202]

Originally Posted by jsriram

Yes, it seems he led a normal life eschewing the frills of a billionaire. However, no one can beat destiny. Even if he had taken a chopper, it may have crashed (Kobe Bryant and CDS Rawat are recent cases).

Sorry to be so blunt about it, but blaming things on "destiny" on a well educated car forum is plain rubbish and in poor taste. Let us not let out personal beliefs or value systems interfere here. It's by mere chance that this unfortunate calamity has occurred.

My condolences to the dead. They lived a full life. One can indeed wonder if he's truly ever safe in any car on Indian roads, all the more reason for us to drive safer and practice a little more empathy. The world needs it in abundance right now.

[shancz]

Originally Posted by Poitive

.
The front has not crumpled to take in the impact, and much would have been transferred to the cabin.

IMO it has but its not visible because it wasn't a full height crash so the "V" structure was lower than the bonnet. Lifting the bonnet would reveal the true extent of damage.

Considering the car didn't bounce back post impact indicates that it wasn't travelling at a very high speed but seems like, thanks to the valuable info on the road design and conditions shared earlier, the driver just wasn't expecting that anomaly and went straight into it.

Also this is much more severe than the small overlap crash test. In the small overlap, part of the energy is dissipated since its partial and vehicle bounces off. This was a head on collision at the mid/mid-left into a rigid barrier with the impact area probably 1 inch wide and 2-3 feet tall. The entire energy of impact was transferred to the car's passive safety grid.
The worst/most severe frontal crash in my books.

Truly unfortunate as I have encountered such idiotic and lethal road designs and they catch you by surprise regardless of speed.

A preventive guardrail to deflect the vehicle back on the road with road markings and warnings(I know I am dreaming now) with the bridge edge (V) structure wrapped in rubber shrouds and a crash barrier just preceding it would've most likely alerted the driver or at most caused a minor damage to the GLC with not a scratch to the occupants. The unbelted ones would've had a bloody nose or a bruised face to learn a lesson for the rest of their lives and educate more people to belt up.

Although despite the outcome I doubt if it will make any difference or necessitate any action against the responsible authorities and officers.

[StopUnderrides]

1) I don’t understand the extensive discussions about road engineering, specifics of the accident etc. It seems to be a full frontal non underride impact and the car has performed its role beautifully. If one doesn’t belt up it’s akin to suicide.
2) The attitude we need is what Thad has mentioned multiple times about his interactions with his Dad. Roads, traffic, weather are all external factors. The bridge wall was just there. It didn’t actively prevent or cause the accident since it’s an immovable object. Ultimately it’s the driver’s responsibility to drive “safely as per conditions”.

[vishnurp99]

Tragic and unfortunate accident! My condolences to the family of the deceased.

Clearly all that we can do now are to take our learnings from this episode and there are a few.

1. No car is really 100 percent safe. It's best to practice defensive driving. There are reports that the car in question had an average speed of 133 kms/hr for the previous 10 minutes. So aggressive driving was a contributing factor.

2. I have seen some stupid people(myself included) test out the top speeds of the car on public roads when traffic is low. This episode shows that you don't need traffic to get involved in a fatal accident. Just a concrete divider+split second judgement error might do it.

3. Finally seat belts are a must especially for rear passengers. We should insist on that for all our passengers. An unbelted rear passenger is a potential hazard for front passengers too even if they are belted in.

Hopefully this will be a wake-up call for a lot of us.

[John]

Police said the car was overspeeding (well over 100 kmph) before it hit a road divider as the driver lost control while trying to overtake another vehicle from the left side.


https://www.hindustantimes.com/india...336969944.html

[shankar.balan]

Originally Posted by AirbusCapt

We Indians have this peculiar habit of not wearing seatbelts. Is it some kind of mass delusion or what, no one knows. the culprit has refastenedIndians are fat so the seatbelt sort of digs into them making them feel trapped or something.

Ha ha. I m sorry I just couldn't help guffawing.
Your use of some words were apt and funny too! Culprit. And Mass Delusion. And the fact that Indians do have a midriff spread and hence discomfort does contribute to this peculiar habit of not wearing seatbelts when sitting at the rear.

No disrespect is meant to the deceased and anyone else.

[mikepapa]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

I had a friend in London who practically refused to wear seat belts in the rear seat, even though they had become a legal requirement. The reasons, I guess, are common to many, world wide. She had no clue about the dynamics of travelling at 50kph. She thought that the front seat backs would cushion her safely: I was disillusioned on this one by an ex-cop colleague who told me about picking bits of human out of the steel frame. She could not drive; she had no interest in cars. She certainly wouldn't have ever read any of the commonly available descriptions of what happens to people in a car in an accident.

Many drivers don't know. Many are not that interested: perhaps some prefer not to know.

Thank you very much Sir for sharing your thoughts through this anecdote. Although very sad and gory (hope she rests in peace), this post will serve as a reminder to my backseat copassengers. People misconstrue my insistence for using seat belts in rear seats have earned me 'arrogant', 'uptight', 'stubborn' and various such monikers. In long-ish highway drives where we are going as a convoy, people have chosen to shift to other cars because of my 'arrogance' not to drive unless buckled up.

I just took a screenshot of this post and mass broadcasted to all such 'dear' friends, because I really consider them to be very dear to me.

May the departed rest in peace

[am1m]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Rear seat belt reluctance....
Many drivers don't know. Many are not that interested: perhaps some prefer not to know.

I think a lot of it has to do with not being used to it when one started driving and then not willing to change. A lot of things are like that- I grew up not doing it, so it's ok. And then we tend to rationalize it and justify it, when actually that's all it is.

My mom refuses to wear her seat belt. She refused during the days she used to drive and now when I drive her around. Pretends she can't hear me when I ask her to and then gets angry! Of course when she started driving, most Indian cars didn't have seat belts and I think that is the reason. Thankfully, the time she spends traveling by road these days is very limited.

I also participate in an adventure sport on and off and I've noticed that a lot of the older participants who have been at it for longer, tend not to use helmets. Again, at the time they started, we either didn't have those kinds of helmets in India, or they were really heavy and cumbersome. Now we have excellent helmets that you won't even feel, but these guys still refuse to wear them and find strange convoluted reasons to justify that!

Even now when all cars have seat belts and cops impose fines enthusiastically, you'll see people trying to get away without using belts, or belting up only when they think cops are around.

We need to start stressing these things right at the initial, driver education level.