[Ithaca]

Originally Posted by arunphilip

One can only wonder if the outcome would have been different if people were properly buckled up.

That is the million dollar question.
The Fortuner held itself very well and would have protected all the occupants if they were belted in.
This is another pointer that even people in the back seats should be belted in and not leave things to chance.
But we are all invincible in our heads.

As per tv reports, it seems that he was trying to take a drink of water and was distracted by the passenger in the back seat and wasn't able to react well in time to the vehicle he was overtaking or the divider.

[strawhat]

Glad to see one Telugu news channel airing a program touching on the importance of safety with a panel consisting traffic department heads emphasising on over speeding, high speed overtaking, helmets, seatbelts, airbags, road rage etc. in the backdrop of this accident.

Two really good, related topic points raised by an SP - who was invited by the channel - was how ignorance rules over common sense while on the road and the need to include road manners in curriculum. To me they sounded very obvious and sometimes repetitive but in retrospect I believe every word they spoke made a lot of sense and needed stressing. They also talked about campaigns launched by the traffic department like this, this and this.

Felt shows like these should be telecasted more instead of repeating videos of prominent people paying respect to the deceased. These VIP figures should start talking about traffic awareness not just offering condolences when interviewed. Words coming out of their mouths have a lot of impact.

[BenjiRoss]

An NDTV news article highlights the fact that seatbelt was not worn.

One more thing mentioned is:

There were some issues with regard to the "road engineering" also, the official told reporters

This is quite valid, but may soon 'become' the primary cause of the accident with the speed and seatbelt slowly disappearing from news articles.

[deetee]

Other people on TV keep saying how Harikrishna has been self driving for many lakhs of kilometers and eventually met his end doing what he loves most - driving. Well, he is a 60 year old man and probably might not have driven high powered SUV's until last 5 years or so. Given his age and his overconfidence, not wearing seat belts is more about ego than ignorance, I believe. There were a few other politicians who died in similar circumstances - not wearing a seat belt being primary cause.

[earthian]

Originally Posted by deetee

Well, he is a 60 year old man and probably might not have driven high powered SUV's until last 5 years or so.

It would be interesting to understand how you arrived at that conclusion. Could you elaborate?

Given his age and his overconfidence, not wearing seat belts is more about ego than ignorance..

What has age to do with (not) wearing seat belts?

[speedmiester]

Originally Posted by earthian

What has age to do with (not) wearing seat belts?

Well people who have driving the old ambassador, premier padmini scoff at us when asked to wear seat belts. Forget seatbelt, they don't even open the ORVMs.
If you say something, the usual reply will be "I have been driving since before you were born, don't teach how to drive. We don't need mirrors or seatbelts to drive"

[deetee]

Originally Posted by earthian

It would be interesting to understand how you arrived at that conclusion. Could you elaborate?


What has age to do with (not) wearing seat belts?

Old habits die hard. Back in their age they were not used wearing seatbelts and they have driven over long time like that. Ofcourse, the speeds they drove back then may be relatively much lower, traffic density much sparser than today. But , does that all come to their mind when they take the wheel without wearing seatbelts? Certainly, they are not ignorant about seatbelts and their use. Then what else can be preventing them from wearing those? The ego I was referring to is their thought process - " I have driven for X number of kilometers for X years and I never needed all these belts. So I don't need them now either"


Edit: If someone starts wearing seatbelts early into their driving life, overtime, seatbelt becomes part of their 'driving attire'. Even if momentarily they take off the belt, if feels like something is amiss. The opposite happens to drivers who drove larger part of their lives without seatbelts. They can feel hugely uncomfortable wearing seatbelts, which causes them to skip the safety device.

[shubhodeepdas@g]

Originally Posted by Parm

The truth is "Train hits the car" but is misleading...

The correct and more logical way to put it is "Car collides with train", that way the cognitive bias of the reader is against the car. "Train hits the car" is equivalent to saying "Pedestrian hits a car and dies". As far as language goes, the one thing that had a choice in the matter should come first.

Originally Posted by n_naik

I feel, people have to be educated about the strengths and weaknesses of their SUVs.

Originally Posted by Yieldway17

They see people brag that they have done this distance in less than 90 mins and so think it's normal for cars to do these times, speed limits and safety be damned.

It's the popular opinion when you buy an SUV, it's a "Sports Utility Vehicle", with very little to with being "sporty" as such. Somehow the amount of money you spend is perceived as being directly proportional to how fast it can be driven.

Originally Posted by speedmiester

If you say something, the usual reply will be "I have been driving since before you were born, don't teach how to drive. We don't need mirrors or seatbelts to drive"

It's good to gently remind them that they drove in a 10th of the vehicle density today at half the speeds and a 10th of the rate of acceleration consuming 10 times more fuel. Times have changed fortunately.

[locusjag]

Originally Posted by earthian

What has age to do with (not) wearing seat belts?

My dad used to get angry whenever I would ask him to wear his seat belt. Not the loud anger that you'd think, just a hiss and a deep resentment that you can sense by way of IR radiations emanating from him. To avoid this, I stopped asking him.

These days he wears them. Why? I've spoken about this before too on this thread, but he was in an accident where he didn't wear his seat belt and was in the front passenger seat. Where his head hit the windshield, it appeared as if a cricket ball had hit it. And he was unconscious for 2 days in the ICU after that...

[aaggoswami]

Ten Killed in Surat as Innova collides with truck.
Source

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Ten people were killed and three injured in an accident involving a car and a truck in Gujarat's Surat district today, police said.
The accident happened on the national highway near Baleshwar village under Palsana police station limits, an official said, adding that those who died were travelling in the car.
"A Toyota Innova car with 11 passengers lost balance and broke the divider and crossed on to the other side of the road. It rammed into a truck coming from the opposite direction," Deputy Superintendent of Police Hetal Patel said.

Patel said six persons died on the spot and four succumbed at a hospital.
Apart from one person in the car, two of the four persons travelling in the truck sustained injuries, she said.
The official said three of the people dead had been identified. She gave their names as Manish Sain (22), Vaibhav Parihar (24) and Bharat Sain (47).

Patel said the vehicle belonged to a Vadodara resident who had handed it over to an agent in order to scout for a buyer.

[vigsom]

^^
The car was parked for sale, not to be let out to third parties to use.


Yet another case where the owner of the car will spend time and money fighting the case out, while the dealer will go scot-free .

[haldar_siliguri]

Originally Posted by ninjatalli

and clearly the writer doesn't require any mentality change; at most maybe he could be a lil more good in his english maybe?

This post deserves a sincere round of

[hserus]

Originally Posted by vigsom

^^
The car was parked for sale, not to be let out to third parties to use.


Yet another case where the owner of the car will spend time and money fighting the case out, while the dealer will go scot-free .

Was the dealer one of the passengers / driver in the car?

[hemanth.anand]

Originally Posted by aaggoswami

Ten Killed in Surat as Innova collides with truck.
Source

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11 people ins an Eigtt seater
Even if they were looking at the car with an intention to buy it, 10 people to take a test drive!!!

[KiloAlpha]

Originally Posted by hemanth.anand

11 people ins an Eigtt seater
Even if they were looking at the car with an intention to buy it, 10 people to take a test drive!!!

I think this might not have been a test drive. More like a joy ride.