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Originally Posted by Rohan265 I see no evidence of belt usage in the front passenger and rear seats. |
How do you say that, considering that the front airbags indeed inflated? Rear occupants may not have.
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Originally Posted by Rohan265 There is minimal occupant intrusion. Not possible to judge the vehicle's speed without an inspection. |
Again we cannot say that minimal occupant intrusion, considering the dash had came in. As per traffic authorities, they were traveling at an average of 133 kph in the last 9 minutes. The peak speed could be 150 kph. However there is a doubt on the timings as usually these accidents are dismissed by authorities as over-speeding and not following rules.
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Originally Posted by Rohan265 The car seems to have done its job. |
True
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Originally Posted by Rohan265 There is a problem with the road here. The bridge wall is exposed to the road without any protective barrier in front. There is no guardrail or any other fence to keep the vehicle on the road either. This is a common scenario throughout our country. Our road infrastructure is not forgiving if the vehicle departs the road. |
Very true. But media and authorities will never speak about this.
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Originally Posted by throttleflick Don't you think the seat belts might be removed to rescue the occupants and transfer them to a medical care facility post the accident? How can one ascertain non usage of seat belts in that case? |
Spot on. It's a grey area for now.
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Originally Posted by Durango Dude RIP, Cyrus Mistry! Could this accident be because of cruise control at high speed |
That's a new perspective, which I am not aware of. Thanks for this.
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Originally Posted by ts75 Very unfortunate. RIP.
As far as I remember, there are couple of few places in that stretch where the 3 lane NH splits into 2 laned bridges (2 in number, i.e. 4 lanes). If one doesn't know the topography, the last minute split of the road can be quite confusing and disorienting, particularly at high speeds. |
Sad story of our unsafe road infrastructure. It had gone unnoticed for several years and authorities still continue with arrogance of colonial era as if just giving a road for people to use is in itself a great service and cannot expect anything more than that.
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Originally Posted by shancz It was given as a pillow to the lady in the car who was lying down on the side of the road. |
Exactly. Media without knowing what could have happened keeps spinning stories as if the backrest was broken in impact or other conspiracy theories.
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Originally Posted by shancz A rounded bridge edge along with preventive crash rails would've greatly reduced the impact force manageable by the GLC's passive safety grid. |
Howsoever the cars are tested for safety, real world scenarios are a real surprise for those as well. Back seat passengers should buckle up. Period.
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Originally Posted by chaitanyakrish This is the accident spot and as seen below, the left lane diverges into 2 bridges. |
What a great engineering feat? We can see this in several places across India. The bridges are built with more lanes as it would be difficult to take up bridge woek again when lanes are added to the road. Till this point its fine. But how a driver can know this is only through signage warning them of this change in the road. That get's missed out. Travel is about the vehicle, the road and the driver. The road should guide across its path the vehicle and the driver like the rails of a railway. However road engineering in India neither follows standards nor follows common sense.
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Originally Posted by Sebring Any idea on the speed at which it was travelling? Dash display should be on |
As per records it could be certainly more than 130 kmph.
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Originally Posted by ts75 The highway is 3 laned. Suddenly, in couple of places, it splits into 2 bridges of 2 lanes each. Have given a representative diagram below.
If one is travelling in lane 1 or lane 2, absolutely no issues. The split of the 3 laned NH into 2 bridges causes no discomfort at all.
But let us taken an example where lane 1 and 2 are occupied by heavy vehicles (this stretch has heavy truck traffic). If one were to overtake using the lane 3, i.e. leftmost lane (marked as * in the diagram), one would be at a much higher speed than the rest of the vehicles. |
Thanks for detailing it to this extent. Really a great insight! Thanks.
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Originally Posted by shancz 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. |
Agreed
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Originally Posted by shancz Considering the car didn't bounce back post impact indicates that it wasn't travelling at a very high speed but seems like |
Don't think so. The car took it all. So it looks like slow speed. Certainly it was speeding at least more than 80 kph if not 130kph as per authorities.
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Originally Posted by shancz The entire energy of impact was transferred to the car's passive safety grid.
Truly unfortunate as I have encountered such idiotic and lethal road designs and they catch you by surprise regardless of speed. |
Absolutely.
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Originally Posted by shancz 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 ...
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. |
Though I do not agree in full on the impact with road design change, but yes it would have not been lethal.
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Originally Posted by 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”. |
Agree with Thad on conditions and with you on seat belts. But drivers are humans. And humans are bound to make mistakes or succumb to emotions. So we cannot push everything to driver's responsibility IMHO.
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Originally Posted by aniketi By looking at the pics, no way persons in the back seat should be dead on the sport, that too in car like Mercedes. Rear portion of the car looks quite intact and car like Merc should definitely save lives of the persons in this case. |
Without wearing seat belts the occupants will be tossed around inside the car. Their heads may hit the roof or front seat head rests or what not, depending on the angle of impact. This is lethal.
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Originally Posted by 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 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.
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Summarized it very well.
However speed they travelled is still a mystery as there are conflicting reports. But as you said mainstream media will just focus on over-speeding and seat-belt compliance.
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Originally Posted by srgntpepper Agreed. No official statement is going accept faulty design or markings. |
Again a sad truth. How do we make them accept as Team-BHP? Do we have any means?
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Originally Posted by srgntpepper I drive this part of the highway once a week. I can tell you that trucks and other slow moving passenger cars often block the right and middle lanes even when the left lanes are free. Many times, two slow moving vehicles will occupy the "fast" lanes trying to gingerly overtake each other.
It is natural (not to be confused with justified) that people get frustrated and try to overtake slower cars from the left. |
Very true. It always happens.
We have a good forum here helping each other and educating on cars, their safety, buying decisions and so on. Can we do anything, collectively as Team-BHP to improve our road infrastructure?