[balenoed_]

Originally Posted by shubhodeepdas@g

Looked like a textbook overtaking gone wrong when overloaded.

It looks like had happened on a curve. Sad and poor passengers of the car.


Courtesy: Marunadantv

[KevinP]

Overtaking on a curve is rampant, people just don't understand how unsafe and dangerous it can be for both themselves and on- coming vehicles!

[VKumar]

Originally Posted by The_Outsider!

Hello Arwin07,

That's an Alto K10.

That's an Alto K10 AMT

My previous experience with a few AMT cars says that these are not at all the vehicles with which anyone would want to do an emergency maneuver or a quick overtake. I am myself one the victims of the unpredictable behavior of the AMT; once I was making a quick overtake in a Celerio and the AMT decided to upshift; now that upshift meant 1 second of power breakdown along with a slower acceleration, I quickly applied the brakes and decided to not overtake even after around 50% of it was done.

In a manual Alto, it would have been a simple downshift - and go

In an AMT, it is like:
1) Press hard
2) One shift down - jerk 1
3) One or two shifts down - jerk 2
4) Suddenly the box realizes that it should shift up again

Its a curve, a head on collision and six lives lost. Many will say that this has happened and that has happened. I don't believe that anyone will be foolish enough to directly drive into a bus. I would put my doubt on the AMT too, this gearbox is just not meant for any quick overtakes.

[balenoed_]

Originally Posted by VKumar

That's an Alto K10 AMT

My previous experience with a few AMT cars says that these are not at all the vehicles with which anyone would want to do an emergency maneuver or a quick overtake. I am myself one the victims of the unpredictable behavior of the AMT; once I was making a quick overtake in a Celerio and the AMT decided to upshift; now that upshift meant 1 second of power breakdown along with a slower acceleration, I quickly applied the brakes and decided to not overtake even after around 50% of it was done.

In a manual Alto, it would have been a simple downshift - and go

In an AMT, it is like:
1) Press hard
2) One shift down - jerk 1
3) One or two shifts down - jerk 2
4) Suddenly the box realizes that it should shift up again

Its a curve, a head on collision and six lives lost. Many will say that this has happened and that has happened. I don't believe that anyone will be foolish enough to directly drive into a bus. I would put my doubt on the AMT too, this gearbox is just not meant for any quick overtakes.

Not sure manual gear would have saved the car here. It does not look like he had any room to get back on to his lane even if the engine gave some power. Looks like he just overtook in that curve blindly. By the time he saw the monster bus, nothing he could do than to close his eyes and bang on to it hoping a miracle would happen. But physics has something else to prove.

If talking about AMT v/s manual phenomenon here, is it like if on a manual transmission, the driver will be a bit more alert, usually with one hand on the gear lever and being ready for any quick down shifts and aborting the overtake during such scenarios. In AMT, probably a more relaxed behavior is practiced owing to lower reflexes to get out of situations like this? Just a thought.

[Vinodh_Gowda]

The incident in the video below happened with me a couple of months back. No loss of life but could have been serious in-case the two-wheeler guy had fallen down a bit further. Wet road and bad riding to be blamed, majorly the latter.

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

[locusjag]

Speaking about the head-on collision between the Alto AMT and the bus in Kerala - I would suspect the AMT too, the horrible/finicky thing that it is with a mind of its own. Even if the driver knew well enough to overtake in a lower gear as Vkumar said here, the damned thing probably just upshifted on its own.

I know this is just a suspicion; but why then is the golden question - why did the chicken cross the road - asked so often so as to be accorded a proverbial status in our collective language usage? If hens didn't run across roads and sacrifice themselves so often for the noble cause of training drivers everywhere in defensive driving, that proverb wouldn't exist. When you see hens by the side of a village road, you slow down and tap your brakes - no unfounded suspicions there.

Why did the AMT shift? We should ask the hydraulic actuator. Or, a plumber might be able to explain why. But seriously though, I think the Alto comes with a manual shifter paddle and that should've been used. I know that the Kwid AMT lacks the manual shifter and you would need to pay me a lot of money to drive it!

If it were a manual transmission and a skilled driver who is brash enough to overtake in a curve, the driver would have been in a lower gear with enough power left to extract in that gear. You can zoom out of sticky situations in a manual car in ways that automatics just cannot perform.

A special mention is needed about the effect of load on braking. I drive my TUV 300 alone most of the time. On the rare occasions when I have 7 people in it, I find myself surprised by how differently its braking behaves despite being prepared for it. There's something to be said about momentum and braking distance.

[A350XWB]

Originally Posted by KevinP

Overtaking on a curve is rampant, people just don't understand how unsafe and dangerous it can be for both themselves and on- coming vehicles!

I'm from Pathanamthitta (southern Kerala) and my wife is from Kozhikkode (northern Kerala), so I get to drive a lot in both parts when I have my home visits. I start believing in luck, time etc. when I drive in Kerala. You feel that accidents are less only because of these factors. People dart out of the shadow of vehicles in front, without even seeing whether a vehicle is coming from the other side or not. If they realize that they cannot complete the overtaking maneuver, they try to squeeze in to the left lane, pushing the other vehicles, either to brake hard or move out of the road. If you have a wide 2 lane road, like the MC Road now, they form 3 lanes, the middle lane by potential overtakers waiting for opportunity. If you drive on the Kozhikkode by-pass or the widened parts of NH66, you'll know what I'm talking about. I've seen similar kind of driving in coastal Karnataka, going up on NH66. People are simply impatient

[Acharya]

Bit surprised that AMT is being brought in a as one of the reason for head-on collision here. The real reason lies not in the transmission mode, but the overtaking habits especially on undivided roads. Many drivers (including heavy vehicles) overtake even when they see a vehicle on the other side of road and take their chances, day in & day out. Sometimes they overtake when they can't even see the road ahead due to curve or another overtaking truck ahead of them. They survive such maneuvers most of the time & start believing there is nothing wrong in it, but one critical day their luck runs out.
This is what seems to have happened here. It's not the AMT but the driver who decided to overtake without seeing a clear road ahead.

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by locusjag

Speaking about the head-on collision between the Alto AMT and the bus in Kerala - I would suspect the AMT too, the horrible/finicky thing that it is with a mind of its own. Even if the driver knew well enough to overtake in a lower gear as Vkumar said here, the damned thing probably just upshifted on its own.

I dont agree with you, having driven an AMT for 27k kms till date. I have NEVER faced an upshift while overtaking till date in my Celerio. If at all one suffers an upshift while overtaking, that means they had a light foot on the throttle, which is a stupid thing to do while overtaking. Even downshifts from 5-4-3-2 are very quick which actually helped me in overtaking in a few scenarios. One does not have to floor the pedal but around 50% of accelerator pressure is good enough to delay or hold shifts. If we press the throttle fully, the upshifts happen at redline only.

That driver was foolish enough to load six people and yet overtake on a curve which led to the tragedy. Recently I climbed the steep Agumbe ghats without even using the manual mode in the Celerio. I only used the manual mode while requiring engine braking.

[paragsachania]

If AMT is to be blamed or suspected as one of the speculations, I must say there are so many cases where I have seen the quintessential Turbo lag in few cars while negotiating climbs in ghats or hair pin bends or for that matter even overtaking. We would have a good sample of accidents from these mistakes that drivers to by not knowing the limitations and tricks to drive certain cars!!

To be the in the right gear is one thing, to do so at the right time is another and the knack of it will come only from experience. I have seen many within my own circle who would downshift at the apex of a hair pin curve and then struggle to climb.

It is time now to lay these speculations to rest while the real reason could be something else, something as simple as inability to cope up with the risks of driving on a single carriageway road. A classic example of this trait is when you drive on weekends where on dual carriageway you will see cars zoom past you with extreme speeds and when you catch them ahead after the road becomes single carriageway, they struggle to overtake with the best of windows (Gap and visibility).

[locusjag]

^ I think paragsachania has nailed it - drivers should know the limitations and tricks to drive certain cars. AMT cars are different animals indeed, just as assorted cars with turbolag are notorious...

Apologies to all for missing to think this through earlier.

Personally, I detest the AMT; I hunted high and low for a used torque converter type AT car in 2018 and I avoided all the AMTs out there. Let me face it; I don't like it nor understand it. That right there is the truth!

[for_cars1]

Originally Posted by KevinP

Overtaking on a curve ... people just don't understand how unsafe and dangerous it can be...

-The first picture showed just the car and the bus
-The second one showed a short stretch of the road and the car on the wrong lane directly in the Bus' path
-The third pic showed things in even better perspective by showing the curved road.
There is absolutely no doubt that the car was at the wrong place.

It is so common to expect (and see) vehicles overtaking on blind curves putting themselves and other vehicles(following rules) in peril. The clear cause is lack of awareness among drivers as a result of obtaining driving licenses without any proper tests/qualification by the RTO.

[wangdu]

Sad, RIP.

I couldn't help but think why the bus driver didn't brake in time and reduced the impact? There's surely a good view ahead of the bus driver even if it's a bit of curve.

Pretty obvious that Alto would have braked hard or to an extent but as we see in our highway driving experiences as well, many times these vehicles coming from the opposite side especially if it is a cab, truck or bus just don't stop.

When I had been in such situations (whether I am overtaking or the vehicle from opposite end decides to use this side of highway too) all the saving work is done by us in relatively little vehicles while these truck/bus drivers absolutely don't give a worry. "Might" is right eh?

[the_skyliner]

Originally Posted by wangdu

When I had been in such situations (whether I am overtaking or the vehicle from opposite end decides to use this side of highway too) all the saving work is done by us in relatively little vehicles while these truck/bus drivers absolutely don't give a worry. "Might" is right eh?

Are you really trying to find a fault of the bus driver here? The bus is clearing in it's lane. It is 100% Alto driver's fault to end up like that.

Even if the bus was standing still the outcome could have been more or less same. Kind of hitting a wall.

[wangdu]

Originally Posted by the_skyliner

Are you really trying to find a fault of the bus driver here? The bus is clearing in it's lane. It is 100% Alto driver's fault to end up like that.

Even if the bus was standing still the outcome could have been more or less same. Kind of hitting a wall.

Not finding any one's fault. It's crystal clear whose fault it is but I'm not settling any accident claims here but only thinking why these heavy vehicle drivers wouldn't slow down/stop, the way I or someone would on seeing a darn car in my lane.