[kiku007]

Pretty much the story of India.

1. Fortunate/better-off ones don't know how to enjoy responsibly.

2. Roadworks/Highways/Town Planning departments don't know how to plan a road passing through a village.

3. Police don't know how to police.

4. The unfortunate/not well to do ones don't know whom to pin the blame for their present situation.

End result? Mayhem.

[deehunk]

Originally Posted by sub.g84

But just imagine how many cars have to face stray animals crossing the roads every day and how many animals get run down in the process. If there is anyone to be blamed in this case then it is solely the authorities who do not do their part in ensuring safety.

My first question do we need this senseless development at the cost of other citizens? Every year urbanization is gobbling up rural areas in the name of development. Forcible eviction of villagers and unplanned construction of infrastructure backed by real estate lobby is the root cause. I had written on some other thread about Bharatmala that future focus should be on railways and not roads anymore. We all can post thousands of videos of cars and bikes driving in wrong direction against each other till we find ourselves among them. Some gentleman even called the father of this child as a b**ger. It has turned out to be a foregone conclusion that anyone who spoke for the life lost has justified the thrashing of biker.

[Roy.S]

This is not unique to this part of the country at all. If anything, such incidents seem to be less frequent here. I have seen this sort of thing happen in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. People who are unfortunate enough to have been 5-10 min behind a location involving a fatal accident with a local always run the risk of vehicle damage/assault. There was another incident about 10 yrs ago near Chitradurga where several trucks were set on fire because of a fatal accident caused by a truck. The victim in this case was, again, a child.
My point is, mob justice is not necessarily directed against users of a particular type of vehicle.
Jaywalking and riding/driving on the wrong lane is rampant near village crossings. The video posted earlier of the biker in the wrong lane is something I've never seen before,though. Most of them keep to the side except in Orissa where each lane is treated as a regular road and the violator sticks to his left. Of course, this means that he will be directly in your path just as you are hitting triple digit speeds.
Defensive driving and a whole lot of praying seem to be the only solutions.

[Gildarts]

Originally Posted by dark.knight

Saw a KTM bike speeding and swishing about as usual about half hour ago in the Sarjapur road stretch towards Total Mall.. as I'm an expert in that route and was maintaining decent speeds myself I saw that he was heading right towards a speed-breaker and felt that he won't make it.. he didn't and he awkwardly jumped over it, lost balance and fell. At those speeds anyone can make an error of judgement as the eyes and hands simply cannot keep up with the inputs, so I'm not blaming the bike here as I know its only a rider error.

However, what compels all these so called riders to ride bikes which they cannot handle is what I can't understand. If they want to test their reflexes its easy to ride down to some track academy and unleash its limits there.. why be so brazen and stupid as to break the law and injure someone else in the process? KTM has a huge fan-following for all the wrong reasons, and were it a Ferrari or Lamborghini in its place, those too would be criticized because they simply aren't made for tearing the tarmac in Indian roads.

Rightly said. In recent times we see a lot of blogs and vlogs from "enthusiasts" and even professional auto journalists about long distance touring on big bikes cruising at speeds in excess of 140kmph. Considering the number of strays dogs, cattle and jaywalkers in addition to many other road users with little common sense, No road in our country is safe for such speeds.
May be if the biker was going 20kph slower, he may have avoided hitting the girl or she may have survived with a few broken bones.
I myself am not a slow rider but frequently riding between Trichy and Namakkal on single carriageway state highways, I have become accustomed to the fact that some goat or kid or some idiot on a moped / bicycle could pop out at any time to ruin my day and so I never cross 80kph in that stretch.

[//HB]

Originally Posted by 2legit2quit

Maybe if the Government constructs an overbridge at highway villages or towns, unfortunate incidents like these can be prevented.

Surely you're joking! Have you come across any ONE single junction anywhere in our country, where despite the existence of a foot-over-bridge / pedestrian subway, you don't see multiple people casually walking across the road ?

[Gildarts]

Originally Posted by Doge

This doesn't mean that the biker was at fault, we are here condemning mob justice and ironically, passing judgement that it was the biker fault at the same time. The ignorance is similar in both cases.
I can think of several instances where pedestrians appear from thin air and suddenly start running on the road, jumping across the expressway etc.
There are times when you can't really do anything, imagine you're driving at 90Kmph on the expressway and suddenly some guy decides to run for it like a deer in the middle of the road, what do you do?

You hit the guy and get thrashed by a mob.
Once had a two wheeler riding on the left lane trying to cut across the road in front of our car without bothering to check his mirrors when my friend was doing about 100kph on the right lane. ABS and panic braking could not have saved him, if the guy had not reacted to our horn and stayed out of our path. We showered him with some choice words but he just went on his way as if nothing really happened there.
These things happen very often in our country. Either we must be prepared to face the consequences or practice defensive driving.

[pratyush6]

Originally Posted by Shanksta

Here is a video

These villagers are the most noble souls in India and they are right, didn't you hear them saying 'Bharat Mata ki Jai'?

PS - No one knows what happened, anyone can be at fault and to some extent I can understand (not agree) when the relatives beat the guy involved but to take this out on all bikers? Uneducated, uncouth, imbeciles just doing it for fun. They should be put behind bars. What next - a gang of bikers now rounds up a few villagers and beat the living daylights out of them?

There is only one way we are going and it's not up.

[ant_vas]

A very sad incident indeed! a life lost and has left a lot of folks shaken on either side.

If you see the video, one of the guy is heard saying angrily in kannada "Racing maditra nivu" which translates to "Racing karoge tum lo" in Hindi. So by the sound of it, the villagers were fed up of these racing type bikers and there was tension form the past. This incident triggered the response form them. But no way it justifies the mob fury, as some young villagers are seen to just hit the bikers coz they got a chance!

Don't know who is right or wrong as i wasn't there at the location, but killing someone isn't justified nor is the Violance against all the bikers passing thru that stretch is!

I have seen/heard instance where both the parties were at fault

Instance 1: I was at Indian paratha company (which is close to this accident spot) waiting with my brother-in-law for another family member to join us from devanahalli. Sitting on the table besides us was a young couple may be around 25 years, probably still in college. They finished their BF and started off on their KTM bike towards nandi hills. With in next one minute i could hear some bike coming at very high speed on the opposite side going towards bangalore. i just looked up and it was this couple who were sitting besides us a minute ago riding the bike at insane speed! The girl wasn't even wearing a helmet .

Instance 2: Once my parents took my car to visit our native place with a hired driver. This driver was a young chap and he happened to run over a street dog while crossing a village. He wasn't doing any high speeds as the roads around village are pretty bad near our native. He was shaken and stopped on the side to see the damage. The dog had died unfortunately. But few villagers gathered around the car and started to raise heckles with this guy. My parents were scared sitting in the car! They started demanding some 5K claiming the dog was a pet! Thankfully a policeman passing stopped, saw what was happening and asked my parents and driver to just drive away and told the villagers not to stop them.

The point am making is there are good riders/drivers/villagers and then there are bad one's every where. In this stretch near nandi Uphara where this unfortunate incident took place, there are a lot of rash bike/car riders as well as care less villagers.

As one ad on TV says our roads are full of Idiots! Everyone needs to use their common sense, which is very uncommon!

[500ContyCruiser]

Originally Posted by blackwasp

A recording by a biker at the same (or close to) spot. Wrong way, that too between the two lanes of fast moving traffic. I wonder what these chaps drink to get the guts to even attempt this!

You should read the comments on that video when someone questioned him about his bike mirrors. The way they got defensive and started abusing each other.

That makes the rider as well unsafe person on the road.

[su1978]

That exactly is the point that i have mentioned in another post which proudly announces launch of Apache at 2.05 lakhs and its racing genes. The fan following of KTM is all due to wrong reasons. Mostly in the age group of 18-30. The reason they list is actually amusing. Not only these youngsters but some pretty matured persons also list bemused reasons for supporting KTM and other fast bikes. Ones who own them immediately get into the mindset of thinking themselves as Valentino Rossi. My city of residence is full of such Rossis and schumachers. Almost on a daily basis i see such incidences happen. Add to that the Cab drivers and drivers of illegal people carriers.

But the other side of story also should be blaming our not so naive jaywalkers on the road. Keep on honking behind them to give way but they would have all the reasons for not giving way to you. Few months back, i was driving from Patna to delhi on NH-2. It was around 1900 hrs and i had switched on the headlights. Right at the moment, i saw a lady holding the hand of few others jump the road divider and direct on the road. Despite me honking frantically they showed no signs of relenting and were hell bent on crossing the road. My speed was around 90 but i did a wild swerve to my left and somehow managed to save them. When i looked back in the rear view mirror, i found them to be laughing and giggling all the way. So it is not always the motorists who are to blamed.

Originally Posted by 500ContyCruiser

You should read the comments on that video when someone questioned him about his bike mirrors. The way they got defensive and started abusing each other.

That makes the rider as well unsafe person on the road.

And you dare crash into him! It would have been your last day on the road on your bike. These are locals who assume that road is their ancestral property and everyone else who passes thru the road is bound by duty to protect them and abide by the rules of their respective villages and their local panchayats. You visit a rural area and there are no such rules. While travelling thru train through Uttar-pradesh, if you find any such railway crossing, just try to watch as to how many people wear saftey gears. In case the road is running parallel to railway track, you may find some moron racing with your train. And that too when he would be doing a triple riding on his bike.

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[selfdrive]

I don't quite understand why our highways become business centers. It is almost eerily similar to people in earlier times building their houses near rivers or other water bodies. The risk always existed that one fine day, there would be a flood and everything would be washed away. Or maybe some stray crocodile wandered in, or..

The similarity is probably in terms of the continuous flow of traffic and why people would want to live near such areas. The challenge lies probably in the overall city and highway planning; where everyone wants to have their doors opening to a highway and their bedroom windows opening into bird sanctuaries or golf courses. Till the time that we get people away from highways into specific demarcated residential or business zones such unfortunate incidents will only keep increasing.

The problem as I see it is the inner entitlement that anyone feels will bring them a rags to riches story - to begin trade at the nearest possible point where people are seen in numbers. And where else do you find people with purchasing power other than at highways?! Why are people without vehicles allowed such unfettered access to highways? / end rant

Meanwhile, a touching account from someone who accidentally ended up hitting a child while driving
http://www.bbc.com/news/stories-42309681

[puneeth2]

I don't know if the girl was jaywalking or the rider was careless. But both of those things scare me. I would some day want to buy a big motorcycle. But the attitude of majority of people and their blatant disregard for traffic rules is worrying.

I have been living in Europe for almost two years now and the way people drive/ride has made me realize how less a life is worth in India. Sheer number of ignorant people on the road, both on foot and on some sort of vehicle is scary. Driving on the wrong side of the road, stopping on zebra crossing, speeding to evade red light, overtaking on the left side, people driving slowly on the right side which is only supposed to be used to overtake, the list goes on! A very few of us abide by the rules are outnumbered by a majority of morons with a death wish. It is known the world over that India drives like there's no tomorrow. That is not something I am proud of.

People neither respect public property nor private property. I don't know when this will all change, I don't know if it will ever change!

[opendro]

I read the first page alone. I'm not going to analyze if the child was at fault or mob was wrong or if the biker was wrong.

What I see here is another mob of team-bhpians who see the world as "us" vs "them". Often, it is human nature, specially the elitists, who keep quiet when a their kind of people do a wrong and cry foul when the other kind does the mistake.

Not all stereotypes are bad. Stereotyping is merely a statistical interpretation from a sample. The sample may not reflect the actual population. Even if it did, what percentage of the population can be a good stereotype is often contextual. For example, "Indians are mostly vegetarians" can be a good stereotype because even though the actual percentage of vegetarians may be quite small, even less than 30% (just a random figure for the discussion), that will still be quite a high percentage if you see in the context of the world (other countries).

Point being, the percentage of dangerous motorcyclists on Nandi hills and around, specially on a Sunday morning may not be very high, but it is high enough for the villagers to feel concerned, if not threatened.

If we are going to chide the mob behaviour, lets also chide the dangerous members of our community too. Otherwise, it will start looking like the current political climate of our country.

Lastly, it is sad for both the child and the bikers. I too drive fast on many occasions and don't have the moral right to chide anyone. I can only take the lesson from such incidences to try and be a safer driver.

[gauravanekar]

My 2 paise here:
We are mixing up two different things in this discussion, i.e., mob fury and accidents in Indian highway
1. Mob violence: This is something which we as a country are not willing to pay attention to. It is illegal, immoral and counterproductive. Yet we see mob violence in various situations be it an actor dying, river water sharing, banning movie or highway accident. This problem can be controlled according to me with high employment rate in the country. Nothing else will work in our country, its useless to blame police on issue to issue basis.

2. Accidents in highway: All sorts of generalisation can be made, be it speeding motorists, stupid road crossers, careless parents and corrupt authority. Yes, we need to address each of the above problems. This matter is being dealt by law enforcement authority, moreover It's impossible to pass judgement by us in a forum on this particular accident since information is scarce. Let's leave it as is.

As a motorist what can we do to protect ourself?
As a pedestrian/parent how will I protect loved ones?

These are the only questions we need to answer

[AbelAFC]

This thread has descended into total pointlessness, with everyone just fighting each other.

Grow up guys, the whole point of a forum like this isn't to make your presence felt and your point to be heard. Forums like this exist to ensure the spread of awareness and assimilation of information, not water cooler talk.

A young girl lost her life, and a biker (guilty of her death or otherwise), was thrashed by her presumed neighbors.

It is as simple as this : two things to be taken away from this incident.

1. When a pedestrian, look two ways before you cross a road, especially if you know said road is infested with speeding vehicles. A few seconds more could legit save your life.

2. As a biker, or a motorist in generally, you have the obligation to drive safely. You hold a lot of power in your hands, quite literally, and you must be careful of the consequences. Even more so, the whole lot here is fairly intelligent and educated I assume. I beg of you all, just be more careful in the future, more sensible with your vehicle and we can eradicate all need for such needless incidents and even more needless speculation or conjecture like on this thread.