[sarathlal]

Originally Posted by Arwin07

^(CCTV footage of this accident)
A mother and her daughter died when a truck hit their motorcycle when they were trying to cross a highway near Erode, Tamilnadu.
RIP.

The mother was careless in crossing the highway. She should have looked far right before starting to cross, spotted the lorry and aborted crossing.

Beg to differ.
The lorry have no business to zip through that crossing when he clearly can see a number of school buses and children crossing the road at that time.

The lady, imho, had been patiently waiting to cross and did so only when the school van crossed the road. Poor being made the mistake of assuming the school van to be of cover to cross the road, which in this case proved to be the opposite and created the blind spot for the lorry driver. She did not even dash as we normally see in cases of 2 wheelers jumping in front of heavy trucks.

In this scenario, it was the lorry driver who should have been careful while crossing in middle of so much school traffic. Simply put, he should not have even attempted driving through once one of the convoy started crossing over.

[raystriker]

Originally Posted by sarathlal

Beg to differ.

I beg to differ too.

Ignoring the fact that the truck has the right of way and that she suddenly sped onto the road from a blind spot, if you look at the video closely, she is doing something very illegal and very stupid. Let me explain. Ideally, she should be going with the flow of traffic i.e she should have taken a left to get to the other side of the road via a u-turn. She is directly crossing from (where the school probably is) onto the other side of the road. First mistake. Convenient. Very illegal.

Second mistake- if you look in the direction she is crossing, she did not even bother to check her right side, which is where incoming traffic is coming through. In fact, if she crosses the road onto the other side, she is driving into oncoming traffic. Where exactly is this lady going?

It's a shame to see the loss of life, but she has shown incredible ignorance. She was careless and she has paid the price.

[guru_max]

Originally Posted by Arwin07

Ideally they should have waited for the van to cross the road and crossed without being in blind spot.
In Indian roads, whenever I encounter such blind spots, I honk in anticipation of someone to come from it and slow down in preparation to brake suddenly if needed.

The mother riding the scooty did a blunder here but i think the lorry could have been a bit slow. Dozens of students and a few institutional vehicles are looking to cross the intersection at that time, so probably more restraint was required.

[McLaren Roxx]

Don't we all try & squeeze through the tiniest of gaps at times? Take a look at any road crossing that has a non functional signal & see how traffic criss crosses. It's a wonder an accident is a rarity.
Now add a blind spot in such a scenario & it's one waiting to happen.

Both are at fault, lorry driver didn't seem to slow down one bit at a crossing, that too after seeing school buses & children around.
The lady (in fact this rule applies to all, pedestrians & vehicles alike) should never cross when there's a blindspot.

Plus, I don't see a helmet on her either. Video isn't very clear, but looking at the size of the head against yellow of the bus, don't think so. Chances are that atleast she could've survived, as the lorry doesn't seem to run over either.

[Yieldway17]

Originally Posted by sarathlal

Beg to differ.
The lorry have no business to zip through that crossing when he clearly can see a number of school buses and children crossing the road at that time.

Have to agree a bit. This is an accident very exclusive to India. An uncontrolled intersection in what appear to be a busy pedestrian crossing.

I have a very similar uncontrolled intersection crossing a 3 lane highway I have to cross to go to work and the vehicles on the highway and who has right of way are absolutely merciless almost all the time. I have waited like 5 mins and the vehicles never slow down to let accumulated traffic cross. If somehow vehicles in 2 of the 3 lanes decide to slow down and let the crossing traffic go, there is always a moron on the 3rd lane blaring with horns and flashing headlights flying at 80-100kmph amidst a sea of crossing traffic. Always.

First problem is this intersection need to be a controlled intersection or it has to be closed and traffic routed to nearby controlled intersection. But there are no controlled intersections for a stretch of 5km around this intersection and this problem is seen in every intersection around this busy suburban area.

It’s easy to blame the scooter rider for their stupidity but we have to think about the reality of living in a country like India which doesn’t give a single help in this situation for them to cross that road safely. Who is to blame?

[grevvity]

Originally Posted by sarathlal

Beg to differ.
The lorry have no business to zip through that crossing when he clearly can see a number of school buses and children crossing the road at that time..

In this scenario, it was the lorry driver who should have been careful while crossing in middle of so much school traffic. Simply put, he should not have even attempted driving through once one of the convoy started crossing over.

Even if the lorry driver could manage to slow down at the junction, I think the accident was inevitable given the fact the lady suddenly appeared from a blind spot. Under no circumstances, the lorry had enough braking power to come to standstill even at a speed of let's assume 20 Kmph. A direct hit at that speed would also be fatal.

[luvDriving]

I have to agree with sarathlal that the lorry had no business to zip through that crossing. Imagine if the other bus driver had decided to follow the first one and try and squeeze through ? There would have been a large number of casualties.

The stupidity of the scooty driver (RIP) is exactly the kind of stupidities that bigger vehicles have to watch out for - and this is a classic scenario where one should always assume that some one will try to use the turning bus as cover to cross over.

The lady was indeed at fault for not ensuring that there is no vehicle approaching from the right before proceeding but I will put more blame on the truck driver who should have ideally stopped till the road was clear. This, even though he has the right of way.

[SR-71]

Reading the posts in this thread alone shows how an average Indian's brain is tuned to quickly jump to the conclusion that the bigger the vehicle higher the chances you are the culprit. Even in the last few posts, except for a few rational voice, folks want to just pin the blame on the owner of the bigger vehicle. In the bike vs pedestrian case, its obvious that both the lady and the over-speeding biker are at fault, but the initial reaction of many folks was just to blame the biker entirely. Same is the case with the lorry running over the biker. Clearly the mistake is on the biker lady who was careless to cross the road in a blind spot. In fact the lorry wasn't even speeding and stops almost immediately after running over the poor biker. But no, we need to blame the lorry driver for not stopping.

However the one thing no one seems to pointing out, is the apathy of the government institution which is supposed to build safe infrastructure. In the first situation people are jay walking on the road, roads are meant for driving not walking. Clearly the lack of proper side walk and letting hawkers squat on either side of busy road is a big mistake. If its supposed to be a street which is just for shopping, the road should be closed for vehicular movement. One just cannot have it both ways and expect it to be safe. The story of NH accident is worse. Its a national highway for god's sake. You cannot have such absurd crossings on the highway, that to leading to an education institution, a place which attracts kids in droves. There should be proper controlled road crossings. But no, this is India, no one cares, we will just blame a few folks and move on. In a nation where senior politicians wants to blame the nature and fate for accidents and quip on filing cases against nature (refer link below) instead of looking at the root cause of the problem and fixing it, what more can you expect

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/stor...719-2019-10-06

[sarathlal]

Different people, different perspective, I totally respect that.

In this particular case, more than the vehicle being' 'heavier', presence of school children made all the difference. Getting in between them is huge risk for those kids. Shudder to think what would have happened if the second bus followed the van.

[BenjiRoss]

Let's just swap vehicles and imagine the truck entered the road from the side road without properly looking and the two wheeler came at a decent speed on the main road and couldn't stop in time and went under the truck.
Outcome would have been the same. The scooter folks would have died.
Irrespective of the 'blame' and 'right of way' one thing I've learnt when I'm a pedestrian or a biker - I can't afford to take my chances with bigger vehicles. They are not going to always do defensive driving and watch out for me. If there is a mishap the bigger vehicle gets scratched and I die. Like I've mentioned before, I can only complain to my maker when I lie in my coffin.

[pratyush6]

Originally Posted by trave11er

I am not justifying the speed of the biker in anyway.

In short - every single individual is responsible for his/her safety on roads - anywhere in the world - or for that matter any place (be it road or mountain trail) in the world.
.

I agree with the gist of it. However, it does not matter in this case. The bike was driving too fast for such a narrow lane. Make no mistake, the pedestrian is at fault too but if the bike was riding at a normal speed (and according to prevailing road conditions) he could have braked in time. It seems he would have had low visibility as it was a left turn as well.

[pixantz]

Originally Posted by BenjiRoss

Let's just swap vehicles and imagine the truck entered the road from the side road without properly looking and the two wheeler came at a decent speed on the main road and couldn't stop in time and went under the truck.
Outcome would have been the same. The scooter folks would have died.
Irrespective of the 'blame' and 'right of way' one thing I've learnt when I'm a pedestrian or a biker - I can't afford to take my chances with bigger vehicles. They are not going to always do defensive driving and watch out for me. If there is a mishap the bigger vehicle gets scratched and I die. Like I've mentioned before, I can only complain to my maker when I lie in my coffin.

OK. Go home everybody who were discussing this accident and may be will still do till kingdom come. Benji here has put down the final bottom line about the attitude one should have while riding a two wheeler especially.

I sincerely urge everyone who is onto this thread to read his post at least twice even if you think you've understood, give it an honest once over in your mind and then try to have this as your prime understanding as a safe rider.

Thanx for putting up this point so straight to the point Benjiross.

[BenjiRoss]

This incident, captured on CCTV, seems to have occurred in Kanpur last month and involved a Police vehicle (27 Vajra - ?riot control vehicle). The van was improperly parked (probably parking brake was not working or not applied well) and started rolling onto the pavement and into a small roadside shop. A couple of pedestrians were apparently injured. The police folks simply got into the vehicle, reversed and went away!
I wonder if any action or enquiry was conducted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Cb_Qh9n3Mc

[bvasista]

Originally Posted by BenjiRoss

If there is a mishap the bigger vehicle gets scratched and I die. Like I've mentioned before, I can only complain to my maker when I lie in my coffin.

BenjiRoss - You are absolutely right. We must have seen multiple 2 wheeler(s) trying to squeeze through or cross the roads even when they can see that a truck is approaching, putting their lives at risk to save 30 sec or 1 min of waiting time.

Sadly, the attitude of the majority of the 2 wheeler(s) is that - let me quickly make a move without even bothering to take a look. They would not even think to calculate the approach speed and judge if the other vehicle has to slow down to avoid a hit.

[Rahul Rao]

Originally Posted by sarathlal

Shudder to think what would have happened if the second bus followed the van.

The Bus driver is not a sheep to follow blindly.
I do lot of up country driving where schools on divided 4 lane highways with interrupted medians are common.
School buses as well as all commercial vehicles always cross one by one, after one crosses they wait for highway traffic to cross and only then second vehicle crosses. If they go continuously even a minutes stop means highway traffic piles up.

The situation here is that the green bus whose driver had visibility of oncoming traffic should have been the first to cross, giving cover to the students crossing on foot. Then after the highway traffic crossed the next bus, then the third.


Rahul