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In the close up of the video at 7th second, the auto changes direction. At 8th second, the auto crosses the cat's eye reflectors and in the 9th second it tries to come back to it's lane. It was clearly an attempt to avoid going over the reflectors which made the auto do such a maneuver leading to the accident.

I thought he was doing what almost everyone does in India; drive in the opposing lane for several metres in preparation to making a right turn (and not make a proper L-shaped right turn).

You can see the beginning of the lane / side road he was turning into, in the video.

This is a common feature in TN highways at all intersections. It does more harm than good, specially during monsoon. Sunday evenings you would often find a traffic jam at each of these barricades. God knows what sort of idiots come up with such rules.

Unfortunate incident without any doubt,
The auto driver just seemed to take sharp cut as most of people do, to avoid the speed breaker and not take turn in itself, but as they say bad luck struck them.

Ambulance was not having his siren on, or atleast it didn't sound so in the video, whereas screeching of breaks was clearly heard.

Considering that it is case of 1:40am, such speeds were anyways unwarranted from ambulance.

It’s sheer bad luck that a barrier was at same moment that you were at the intersection . And it is also good luck that you were in a Thar and not a sedan or a 2 wheeler.

Can you check the speed limits at such intersections? It is usually 30 or 40kmph.

I do think the barriers to slow people down is a stupid idea, what is the alternative ? The other option is to put speed breakers which in itself is another safety hazard on highways. ( imagine no markings or signs or unscientific speed breakers ) .

Unless most people follow road signs, we will continue to see such barriers put up. And it is always best to slow down as much as possible at intersections even on empty roads for safety reasons at the expense of fuel efficiency and travel time.

The ambulance is right in trying to get to its destination ASAP. Its at night, the flashing lights would clearly be visible. Every other vehicle should give the ambulance the right of way, and yield/give way/move to the side. Going the wrong way only to avoid the bumps is also criminal negligence. Especially in front of an ambulance. With very few vehicles, what is the need for the ambulance to turn on the siren and wake up the world at this time? The lights should be enough of a heads up.

I request you to share the REAR dashcam model to me too, please :)

That's true. But it's not all too bad, most of us don't give system a chance.
Some 8 years back my friend was riding home from my place around 1 AM. His scooter broke down on the way. He called me asking if I know someone who can pick his scooter up and drop it off at his home. I asked at where he currently was. He told me he was at Chowki Chauraha (in Bareilly). There is a Police Chowki located in front of the circle hence the name. I told him to park in scooter inside the Police station and let the cop on duty know about your situation and that you will pick it up tomorrow.
Cops were happy to oblige, even arranged a drop off for my friend to his home.

I don't understand why people do not use the third party insurance from the person responsible for accident. This way NCB is protected and you do not have to pay the processing fee also from your pocket. I haven't seen any thread where people say that they have utilized the Third Party insurance for the settlement.

I tried this long time back. The other person was at fault and was willing to use his insurance for my repairs. However, the rules are very complex to follow. Both the vehicles should be surrendered at police station. The police are then expected to do an investigation, establish fault, and then release the vehicles. Only then the insurance company will pay. This is all a multi-day/week process, and there will be huge resistance from police to do this. So, usually folks don't use the third party insurance. It is used only in case of injury or something else where the compensation may be huge.

Have you tried this? The process is the punishment here. :-)

Assuming only two vehicles are involved and damages/claims are only to those vehicles:

1. The other party might not be insured.
2. The other party might not agree, preferring to solve it on the street itself instead - with muscle power or cash settlement.
3. For a third-party claim, you need to have an FIR and a chargesheet. That requires police action.
4. Police process requires an MVI to inspect the vehicle and assess damage. Between 3 & 4, you will have to leave your vehicle at the police station for several days.
5. The insurance company might opt to fight out the percentage blame in court. You will be called to court multiple times while this process is ongoing.
6. At the end of everything, you might not receive the full claim amount. The rest of it, your own damage policy will have to pay (or pay from pocket).

I think the main problem is how people take right turn.

Auto driver entered the wrong lane well before the turn without realizing the ambulance. This made the ambulance to start to go to the opposite lane to avoid auto. Auto driver now sees ambulance at high speed and goes back to his lane but it was too late.

I tried to depict the auto driver's path. He should have taken the green line but instead took the red line. Sadly this is how people take right turn. If one tries to follow the green line, there is someone following red line and cutting you off.

I honestly don't think there was any turn that the auto driver was preparing for. I have seen the CCTV footage a number of times and it is pretty convincing to me that he just wanted to swerve around the speed breaker and not lose any momentum braking for it as I have seen many 3-wheelers do. You can even see it clearly at the 7:00 second mark in the video. He may have thought that with his speed, he can go around the hump without braking before the ambulance gets close. But he had to slow down just while swerving owing to the tall and narrow shape of the vehicle, this was all it took for him to have no road to recovery from the path and speed of the ambulance. Life lost for a very minor convenience.

I also don't think the ambulance driver could have done anything in this situation, he saw an auto swerve into his lane at the last second and it was compounded by his already high speed. Not sure if he had any legitimate reason to be speeding but judging by the flashing lights I may be inclined to believe he was en route to a medical emergency.

I tried this but was unsuccessful. A dumper/tipper hit my vehicle from behind. The owner came and asked to settle, I also called the cops - two cops came. I asked cops to check DL and insurance of the dumper. Dumper owner got angry. He was suggesting I give the vehicle to SC, when final bill comes he will pay my share. I told him to pay right now and asked for 10k (no claim bonus hit would be there too). He refused, I refused to use my insurance and asked for 3rd party. I think the dumper owner called his office to find out and must have realized there were issues with his insurance because his anger subsided. Cops were supporting me but suggesting I settle. We finally took both vehicles to police station. Dumper owner finally paid 5k on the spot - he gave it to cop who gave it to me since I was no longer interested in talking to the dumper owner. Cops told me if I went for 3rd party claim, the vehicle would have to be kept in police station for months. I even agreed, to let it stay at the police station, since I was very angry that my new vehicle was damaged (although I did not want it to rot at the police station obviously, so I was bluffing). The cop handed over the money and I took it and moved on ( PS I asked for ncb loss from owner, but later found I had a NCB protector add on. The 5k helped with cab fare and the 1k payment I had to make for insurance claim).

So its not easy to claim 3rd party insurance. What would you choose?
> Leaving your vehicle at police station, which in any case wont happen, since cops will try to convince you to not use that option?
>settling it and using your insurance to get vehicle rectified and dealing with any NCB hits next year?

I'm sadly astonished at the arcane state of Indian motor insurance.

At least in my mother country, if the accident is not the policy holder's fault, his insurance company recovers the costs from the other guy. Effectively this means recovering it from his insurer.

In actual fact, insurers reached the next stage. Companies noticed that their total claims against each other more or less cancelled out, but they wasted a lot of time and money making the individual claims and handling the settlement. So they said, might as well just pay it out our selves.

I haven't lived/driven/insured there for nearly twenty years, so this is old stuff.