[vj_torqueaddict]

The only way to fix our unsafe roads is to make the driving license like a proverbial unicorn. It should be made so difficult to pass that people should flash it proudly. Case in point the Japanese driving license. My friend could never clear it in Japan. He cleared DL test in first go here.

[rkw]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

I do not think that a cow is very soft, especially if hit at high speed.

True, I once slightly hit a dog which just jumped across the road. I braked instantly & I was happy that it was fine as it ran away but was surprised to see that part of the bumper had come out & also the fog light fitting broke away.

By the way, stray cattle seen on roads could weigh anywhere between 500-700 kg.

[Rohan265]

Originally Posted by vvivek85

No clear details on how it happened, based the little information it was a head-on collusion, Venue driver sustained minor injuries whereas Tiago driver unfortunately passed away. One thing is clear, irrespective of number of safety stars the car possess, its your star that will save you on that day, drive safe.
For the records Tiago is rated 4 star and Venue is not tested yet.

The Tiago has experienced an angled collision. But the crash is more of a head-on instead of a t-bone considering the longitudinal crush of the A-pillar and little to no lateral intrusion. The narrow overlap has also ensured that the cross member has probably been bypassed.
GNCAP rating does not matter here as GNCAP does not test for angled collisions that do not involve the cross members. Unfortunately, this is something no manufacturer clarifies when selling their "safe cars".
However, I believe that Tiago's driver died due to a lack of belt usage considering the position of the belt. The intrusion is not significant to reduce his survival space. An analysis of the injuries can only confirm this though.
A thing that is bugging me is that the damages on the Venue and Tiago don't seem to correlate. Is there another vehicle involved in this case that may have also hit the Tiago?

Originally Posted by RGK

Around 3 p.m. today, this accident occurred on the Tirupur-Madurai route before Koduvai Village, which is close to the town of Dharapuram.

At a high rate of speed (>150), the XUV700 crossed the lane and struck the approaching bus. Fortunately, it was a bus. All of the occupants, who were young adults in their 30s, perished, and the XUV's engine is out on the road. Due to the hit of the XUV700, the bus's front tyre was torn off.

Can you provide a source for the 150kph speed? If it is a witness statement, I don't think it is reliable because "150 kph" is a standard quoted speed by passers-by and police when they see heavy damage on the vehicle. I am not saying that the XUV700 is not speeding but saying that it is above 150 kph without any source is hearsay.

Originally Posted by balenoed_

Look at the staff of the bus, it must be the livelihood for them, including the owner (if it really was a genuine business, and not of some political guy). It certainly is going to have some temporary financial burden on them too.

Apart from financial burden, there is also this aspect of a legal/social burden. No matter who is the instigator of the crash, the charge sheet will be filed against the bus driver as he is in the "bigger vehicle". Considering the multiple fatalities the bus driver may even be looking at jail time.

Originally Posted by buzzy_boy

IMHO, M&M executives should be more careful during their promotions, and refrain from saying anything that could induce common public to engage in reckless behaviour.

I completely agree, sir. This also applies to Tata Motors. If the manufacturer starts promoting their vehicle as a "tank", drivers are going to drive it as a tank too. Manufacturers need to start giving the limitations of GNCAP ratings and their cars. We cannot expect the standard car buyer to be well versed in the nitty-gritty of crash tests. This practice is a double-edged sword that will hurt the manufacturers down the line.

Originally Posted by MT_Hyderabad

The car was driven too fast and lost control and hit the bus in such a way that the front middle portion of the car hit the corner of the bus at an angle. This impact also hit the tyre and the bus's axle broke. What broken things you see on the underside of the bus is caused by the bus's tyre and has nothing to do with the car.

The bus was also at high speed and the tyre/broken axle caused all that damage to the bus. However, I am still not able to make out from where the white paint on the side of the bus came from. It could be that the car took a 180 deg turn and the right side of the car slided against the bus before they came to a halt.

This looks like a standard head-on underride in which the car has gone under the truck. Quite hard to say the exact collision angle as someone has taken the car to the cleaners during extrication. The damage that we see is both collision+extrication damage. It is quite hard to say that the bus was also at a high speed without inspecting the scene.

Originally Posted by pixantz

Going by the statistics and how many XUV700 crashes since it's been launched, and all related to high speed, I have a strong doubt that there is an issue at speed with the vehicle which gets it out of control.

I mean, there are lot of rich people buying much more costlier SUVs with much more power than the XUV700, like BMWs, Mercs, Audi, Volvo, Jeep, etc which have 300-700 bhp power, but it's rare for any of them to have ended like these in the numbers the XUV700 is single handedly doing.

Can you share the source of a large number of XUV700 crashes? It's certainly intriguing that the XUV700 has a higher crash rate compared to other cars.
If true, I am not sure if power is the only reason behind the high crash rate of the XUV700. There could be other reasons such as driver age group, driving experience, publicly available data (not all crashes are reported), car type, car features (luxury vehicles usually have more finely tuned safety features such as ESP, FCW), etc. Hard to make any causation without data.

Originally Posted by p_darshi

ADAS not involved in this accident
If you look closely at the wheels design, this model is not AX7. Only the top end AX7 & AX7L get ADAS related features, and hence it’s wrong to blame ADAS. I am 100% sure ADAS would have saved lives in this case. Automatic emergency braking would have certainly reduced the severity of impact

Agreed that ADAS cannot be blamed if there is no ADAS in the vehicle. However, we cannot say for certain that ADAS would have helped here without understanding what has happened. Features such as AEB have limitations of visibility range, travel speeds, TTC threshold etc. The same goes for ESPs.

[shauryadabas]

Originally Posted by Aravind_M92

Even if the car remains intact, imagine the sudden deceleration from 150 to 0 within seconds! Isn't that force enough to crush a human body?!
Our Indian roads are limited to 80 kmph for a reason!

I agree with you. I want to add an essential point for everyone. Many of you who are familiar with Physics and Kinematics, in particular, might know this. But for others:

The force of a crash increases with speed in a SQUARE law. That simply means, a crash at a speed of 100kmph is more than double in impact when compared to the same crash at a speed of 70kmph. We should always keep this basic rule in mind, especially when increasing our speeds above 80kmph !!

[IP_Man]

May departed souls rest in peace.

This incidence proved there is no safe car. No tech will save you if you are fool to achieve that insane speed on Indian road.

How is EPS responding to that speed? I find it very twitchy compared to hydraulic power steering.

[Gannu_1]

Originally Posted by RGK

True. The teens in the car were all inebriated.

Wait, they were all DUI?

Driving at high speeds on our highways is one, this is taking it to a different level altogether! Man, I really feel sorry for the bus operator and the occupants.

Don’t want to comment on the vehicle, it’s safety ratings or tech. At those speeds, your guardian angel is the only saviour you’d have.

[Passiautonate]

Originally Posted by asmr

Perfect example for how star ratings are irrelevant on any roads if one doesn't have the road sense to drive according to one's circumstances. Feel sorry for the people who died but they were highly irresponsible and had very poor judgement driving at that speed.

Sorry, but I found this comment highly inhumane and insensitive. What I am sure of all of them would have crossed legal speed limits an ample number of times. Few would have boasted about it in their friend's circle as well.

Coming to this accident, it's unfortunate and definitely avoidable. No car company crash test for 150Kmph.

[chaitanyakrish]

Originally Posted by p_darshi

ADAS not involved in this accident
If you look closely at the wheels design, this model is not AX7.

Yes, this is AX5 Manual Transmission Vehicle.

[Jattitude]

Originally Posted by sunilch

150KMPH is just near impossible to sustain on our roads unless you get a dead straight road with no traffic for a long stretch. This looks like at 4-lane state highway and I don't think any sane person would think of hitting 150KMPH here unless drunk or something.

I do road trips in my Tata Harrier often (30K kms/year is the average) and I see people ovetaking me at what can only be crazy speeds. Sometimes, in much smaller cars. I often wonder where do they find the courage to drive like that. I am often chided by some of my friends and relatives for driving "too slowly", while I am actually not slow. It's nuts. Drinking alcohol and driving is another menace across age groups.

[turbospooler]

Not an accident post, but related on a similar note.

I think many of the accidents we see here are due to 3 major reasons:
1) Over-confident drivers / untrained drivers
2) Law breakers (parking in no-parking, driving wrong side etc. etc.)
3) State of the road is really unpredictable and negligibly maintained.

If we try to find the Root Cause of the above reasons, we will come to 2 major ones:
i) Licenses have been given without any proper tests or training
ii) Law enforcement for errant drivers / accident causer is very poor
(There is a 3rd aspect of the road contractor doing shoddy work, but it is something which ties to poor law enforcement in the end.)

To usher improved safety of road users, we need 2 very HARSH actions from the Government:
a) DEMONESTISATION-style scrapping of existing licenses of road users, so that everyone has to retake their tests and licenses are given to only those who have studied and at the bare minimum, road-worthy.
b) Digital tools deployment to remove the human dependency of law enforcement. This will remove the human element and automatic booking of offences will reduce the incentive to be stupid on the road. This also takes care of some deviants who have received their licenses but aren't following the rules.

I will elaborate a little bit of the digital tools which I have in my mind.
A fastag style RFID chip in the chassis of the vehicle and road infrastructure to detect these tags (distance wise scanners), which can detect if the rules are being followed.
If the vehicle is hogging the overtaking lane at E-ways, it will generate a challan, if the vehicle is going in the wrong side for a long distance, it will generate a challan, if the vehicle is being parked illegally on the road, it will generate a challan; you get the idea.

Once we remove dependency of the humans, the incentive to adhere laws will increase significantly.
Hopefully, this will reduce the number of accidents and save lives.

PS: I know, none of these initiatives will be possible, so, you can consider this as a rant.

[vsbabu]

Originally Posted by rkw

By the way, stray cattle seen on roads could weigh anywhere between 500-700 kg.

So totally true. Especially with our practice of having cows tied on in the divider.

I regularly do night driving between Bangalore and Coimbatore. I usually stick to 90-100kmph as that is the sweet spot for engine and one gets decent mileage too. Once when I was at this speed and approaching the bridge over Kaveri river at Bhavani, two dark coloured horses just bolted across the road after jumping out of the median - it was about 9pm and I barely avoided the tail of the second one even after emergency braking. Somehow I was able to stop the car on the corner where the bridge starts - another few meters I would have easily fallen into the river that was full at the time. I had to stop for some time to get my pulse normal - cow itself is scary at speed, but horse is an entirely different proposition.

Another instance, a cow got scared by a lorry horn and jumped straight on to my path along with the plant it was tied to. Car stopped within inches of it.

Since these two incidents, I always keep away from right most lane and don't go beyond a reasonable speed unless clear unobstructed wide view is available.

[AJ56]

Originally Posted by manjubp

If both Bus and XUVs are at say 80kmph each at the time of impact, then it is like 160kmph relative velocity, very unfortunate incident.

Nope that’s incorrect, two cars going 80km/hr each will result in a crash at 80 km/hr, it’s not added up as momentum is shared equally by both bodies. Same intensity as driving a single car into a non deformable stationary structure (like a wall) at 80 km/hr.

See here:

https://youtu.be/r8E5dUnLmh4

[The Rainmaker]

Originally Posted by RGK

Around 3 p.m. today, this accident occurred on the Tirupur-Madurai route before Koduvai Village, which is close to the town of Dharapuram.

At a high rate of speed (>150), the XUV700 crossed the lane and struck the approaching bus. Fortunately, it was a bus. All of the occupants, who were young adults in their 30s, perished, and the XUV's engine is out on the road. Due to the hit of the XUV700, the bus's front tyre was torn off.

Feel sorry for the occupants, but this is a live example of why NEVER to buy a Tata/Mahindra or any Indian vehicle. They falsify all their ratings and actually cut costs for the road going variants. That's not how a Pseudo SUV should be crushed. Tells me the metal and supports being used are either non existent or made of butter. I still fail to understand why people still buy them. Is your life cheaper than these vehicles? I guess NOT. I'd rather spend more to get a comparable or spend the same to get a lower variant of a German/Japanese vehicle but never ever am I ever gonna buy an Indian or a Korean vehicle. That's for sure!

[mayankk]

Originally Posted by The Rainmaker

Feel sorry for the occupants, but this is a live example of why NEVER to buy a Tata/Mahindra or any Indian vehicle. They falsify all their ratings and actually cut costs for the road going variants. That's not how a Pseudo SUV should be crushed. Tells me the metal and supports being used are either non existent or made of butter. I still fail to understand why people still buy them. Is your life cheaper than these vehicles? I guess NOT. I'd rather spend more to get a comparable or spend the same to get a lower variant of a German/Japanese vehicle but never ever am I ever gonna buy an Indian or a Korean vehicle. That's for sure!

If you want safety at 150 plus, you really are not left with anything except being encased in steel and rolled off.
Indian, Japanese, korean,german, or kree, nothing will be safe at that speed. Or rated, for that matter.

[GeeTee TSI]

Originally Posted by RGK

the XUV's engine is out on the road.

I have been trying to imagine how the engine got thrown out, one would expect the impact to push the engine through the firewall and into the cabin. Did it get pushed right through and out through the rear ?!

This gruesome accident goes to show that impact conditions in real world can be far removed from simulated crash tests.