[Dead_Pedal]

I think it's time manufacturers implement seat belt reminder function for all seats occupied in cars and not just for the front two seats. Of late, a lot of drivers do put on the seat belts thanks to the continuous aural alert. Many countries in South East Asia have seat belt reminder function for all occupant seats and this should be made mandatory on all cars in India irrespective of the vehicle class. People may always have workarounds to try and defeat the system and it's their personal choice. 80/120 speed alerts may be annoying but I somehow feel they are absolutely necessary in India-the land where rules are vastly disregarded and ridiculed. Sad.

[PratikPatel]

God speed to the departed souls. This incident highlights the fact that no matter how good the safety rating of a car is, it’s practically useless, unless the safety features are used as they are designed to be used. It’s not hard to imagine that the people in the rear seats would not even have idea about what was about to happen, at the point of impact they would have been thrown around like rag dolls having no way to brace themselves.

[CEF_Beasts]

According to a preliminary police probe, the car after crossing Charoti Checkpost in Palghar, covered 20 kms in 9 mins. The car crossed the checkpost at around 2:21pm according to the CCTV footage.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CiG7NYjL...d=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

[RaghuVis]

Originally Posted by AirbusCapt

I guess most Indians are fat so the seatbelt sort of digs into them making them feel trapped or something.

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

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.

This is misleading and OT in my opinion. The USA has the most obese population in terms of percentage of the population but they do wear seatbelts. Once India starts penalizing for not wearing rear seatbelts, the majority of those who don't wear them will quickly convert without batting an eyelid. A case in point is my mom who hates wearing a seatbelt. She openly confesses that she wears it only so that I am not penalized.

PS: TBH I feel it's the exact opposite. I feel having a large tummy kind of makes the seatbelt more comfortable as it does not cling to your neck/face.

[GoBlue]

Originally Posted by AirbusCapt

I guess most Indians are fat so the seatbelt sort of digs into them making them feel trapped or something.

“Most Indians are fat”!?

That is a ridiculously insensitive and offensive remark.

[vharihar]

Lately our highways are increasing in number by leaps and bounds which is good, but I have to admit that very many of them are badly designed, as bad as ever with no learnings. The designers/contractors don't seem to have a mindset of "design it so that it is safe enough to prevent fatalities even in an accident", which is the practice followed in the developed world (classic usecase: missing armco-style crash barriers on the medians throughout the length of a highway). The punishment for rash driving shouldnt be death, it can be injury or better still legal penalty, but it shouldnt be death in an accident.

That apart, not wearing seat belts is also the cause (the main cause in this case, actually).

So there are 2 problems here:

1) Not wearing seatbelts (under the false comfort that rear passengers need not wear it and that airbags are good enough), and

2) Highways designed without the mindset of "prevent fatality even in accidents"

There have been ample studies in the developed world that indicate that seatbelts are the primary savior in an accident. Airbags are secondary and only add a smaller incremental value.

The sad part is, Gadkari is barking up the wrong tree when he's trying to mandate manufacturers to necessarily include airbags in lowest variant. Instead, he ought to:

1) Enforce that taxis keep seat belts enabled in ALL their seats (presently 90% of taxis including Ola/Uber/etc disable seatbelts in rear seats by pushing the receptacle under the seat, using seat covers, etc due to a perceived inconvenience; this perception needs to change). Disabling seat belts in rear seats is an accident waiting to happen when taking a taxi on high speed corridors (eg. Bangalore airport trip, etc)

2) Give strong a repeated advisories using repeated TV/print ads, etc that all occupants of a car should wear seat belts (this can only be an advisory, cannot be enforced in a country like ours, because it is very prevalent in our country to have 4-5 passengers in the rear seat, our socio-economic situation is such that we can't illegalize this overnight)

The sad fact is, the powers that be will simply catalogue this as an overspeeding case and close the issue! If someone has access to Nitin Gadkari or anyone in MoRTH, pls forward this post to him.

[shancz]

Originally Posted by StopUnderrides

1. Ultimately it’s the driver’s responsibility to drive “safely as per conditions”.
2. The bridge wall was just there. It didn’t actively prevent or cause the accident since it’s an immovable object.

1. Absolutely and that's not even a question. The conditions part could be a bit grey in this area as looking at the maps the road and the exit preceding it seems to be reasonably marked but this thing has no warning whatsoever. In reduced visibility coupled with the elevation this would catch anyone by surprise.

2. Exactly and since it cannot move away it has to be marked well in advance and then beefed up with guard rails and crash barriers for the drivers who would miss the warning due conditions like weather or overspeeding and go back with bruised faces, egos and fines rather than lose their lives.

The point of road safety zeroes in on preventing accidents (active) through warnings and markings and preventing serious injuries/deaths(passive) through better road designs and crash barriers which aren't the cause but contributing factors. Hence the discussion here focusses on that.
It would be a dream run for the authorities to blame everything on the driver and slack at their job, which they're quite adept at.

Although I have given up on road safety and mentioned the same in some other thread but old habits die hard and such accidents where even a simple guardrail would've made the difference between life and death are infuriating.
All this, as rightly pointed by you, happens under the umbrella of mandatory seat belts and cautious driving.

[shankar.balan]

Originally Posted by GoBlue

“Most Indians are fat”!?

Looks like a cocktail of racial hatred mixed with body shaming elitism topped off with pilots-are-superhuman trappings of misplaced pride.

Off Topic:
But there is no need for such terrible anger at his remark. It was merely a statement he made. And like it or not, Trunkal Obesity is a problem in India which also increases the incidence of Diabetes and Heart ailments. And just look around. People of a larger girth do tend to sit in the back of cars and cabs and many do find it uncomfortable to wear the seat belt and hence avoid it.

[mathewspaul]

Originally Posted by CEF_Beasts

According to a preliminary police probe, the car after crossing Charoti Checkpost in Palghar, covered 20 kms in 9 mins. The car crossed the checkpost at around 2:21pm according to the CCTV footage.

Thats an average speed of >133 kmph . Frankly speaking, very irresponsible driving and and a case of man made disaster!

[antz.bin]

3 parties, 3 mistakes:

1. The driver was going at ~2x the speed limit. To be able to travel at avg. speed of 133kmph, you have to drive at 150+ regularly.
2. The rear seat passengers, Mr. Mistry and his friend not wearing seat belts in the rear seat. The front passengers were lucky to survive if the brit road safety video is true.
3. Unsafe road design that eventually contributed to the accident at that particular spot. The over-speeding could have led to an accident anywhere, but it happened there.

All 3 mistakes contributed to what has happened. The outcome could have been different had any of these 3 mistakes been avoided.

The legal penalty for these 3 mistakes is not death. But still 2 people have died.

The fact that there were mistakes #1 & #2 will make sure that the mainstream media will steer clear of mistake #3.

I was supposed to meet-up with a friend in mid August, very close to the accident spot. It didn't happen since plans changed but I wouldn't want such a thing to happen to anyone I know. Can we as Team BHP help highlight this to Mr. Gadkari so that this particular spot becomes safer for all of us?

[TejasV]

I think overspeeding on big cars has become a norm - with a false sense of superiority and security. But I would also like to point out that there is no accountability for infrastructure and public safety - I hope the Govt would make amends but am sure that's wishful thinking. We do not have sufficient bankings, warning signs etc. and I have personally seen project designs get changed to keep costs in check or for some gain that isn't in the best interests.

[Turbohead]

Originally Posted by CEF_Beasts

According to a preliminary police probe, the car after crossing Charoti Checkpost in Palghar, covered 20 kms in 9 mins. The car crossed the checkpost at around 2:21pm according to the CCTV footage.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CiG7NYjL...d=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

After reading the article, I realised it's all just hogwash.

Yesterday, most news articles said the accident happened at 3:15 PM. How come the time suddenly become 2:30 PM?
Source: https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/cyru...-3314685/amp/1

Typical cop stuff! Anything and everything becomes an over speeding accident. I wouldn't be surprised if that accident occurred at 80kmph but who would've known that 3 lanes suddenly become 2 with the 3rd lane on a different bridge? Who even signed off such a design?

But I'm not saying the driver is not at fault- overtaking from the left in a right handed corner is a bad idea since you wouldn't know what's in front. And being the left most lane, it tends to carry the slowest of traffic.

Indian highway design needs a re-look since so many accidents prone zones are repeated in new highways without any design change. At the end, the local cops end up putting barriers or speed breakers on a highway with tolls hiked annually for no apparent reason with minimum/no maintenance.

RIP to the deceased! Hope this is thoroughly investigated and not brushed aside so that it brings about real change in the death zones know as National/State highways.

[LTAutoMad]

Tragic accident.

Diana died in the rear seat of what was the safest car in the world, the Mercedes S-class, because she was not belted in. Her driver survived.

Any number of such instances.

Here, the passenger shell of the GLC is largely intact - had he been belted in, Mr. Mistry would most probably have been badly injured, but survived (like those in the front).
We can only speculate.

A friend of mine in HYD was in the back seat of a taxi, the rear seatbelts were stupidly hidden under the seat cover, there was a major crash - he was lucky to survive, but it took him some 3 years to get back to normal health. Had he been belted in, the injuries would have been far less.

[efgritesh]

Can someone shed some more light if this car was equipped with other safety features as well like ADAS and other things. Not sure if it was disabled manually, or the scenario was beyond what technology can support at the moment.

[UD17]

Originally Posted by Sebring

Any idea on the speed at which it was travelling? Dash display should be on

I read the news that the car covered 20kms in 9 minutes before accident based on the previous toll booth passing time. I do not know if the news was verified or not. That equates to >130KMPH.