[StopUnderrides]

Originally Posted by DevilzzzzOwn

This is just heartbreaking and shocking. Without any fault, 5/6 lives vanished in a second.

Passengers in the car who died were not wearing seat belts. The driver was wearing a seat belt and survived. I feel sorry for the kids who died but the adult passengers-they could have survived had they used their common sense and had been wearing seat belts
Sorry but they are not entirely blameless the same way Cyrus Mistry was not when he died in the other crash

[SithDefender]

Originally Posted by speedmiester

The school principal intervened and got back the key and gave it to the same drunk driver only to crash just 6kms from the earlier spot.

This is devastating news. Who will console the parents and what will bring closure to their pain? The school principal should definitely be held culpable and given model punishment. He should have arranged alternative transportation to the innocent kids instead of sending them with the drunk driver. Can we even fathom the stubborn stupidity and senselessness? The fact that it could have been easily avoided only makes this harder to accept.

[ada]

Originally Posted by mm_shen

Just a quick alternate thought. Sleep at the wheel may not be just due to tiredness or lack of sleep. I too have felt drowsy at the wheel even though I have had a good sleep the day before. Many factors affect it. Like if the Sun is quite bright, you have had a full meal and the AC is chill this will make you drowsy. If the roads are monotonously straight without any challenge to your mind, it will make a person drowsy. The best recourse is to be self aware and not risk it when you feel drowsy. Park immediately on the side of the road at a safe place. Put on your blinkers and sleep it off. Even a power nap of 7-12 minutes makes me fresh. Some people say if you chew on something, like a chewing gum that drives away the sleep. But parking on the side, shutting your eyes and arriving late is better than not arriving at all.

Initially when my Baleno RS was new, the smell of new plastic was so toxic that it invariably made me drowsy on long drives, dont know if anyone has that experience.

[anandbangalore]

Admins/Experiences BHPians - this is possibly the longest living thread exhibiting how dangerous the roads can be.

If we were to summarize this thread, and look for learnings, is there a "Top 10 safety advice from TeamBHP" which you can bring out and publish. The findings are data backed from the forum, and trusted like a lot of other TeamBHP advice.

To expand: The Road Safety section https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/road-safety/ has 5-6 independent threads. What I'd love to see is a summarized, and fact based list....something like these. You might have a better sense of what the headline should be. And this could be advice we give our kids as they get of driving age, give to Ola/Uber/Road Transport. Thoughts?

• TOP 10 things to follow
• TOP 10 things to NOT do
• TOP 10 findings from "Accidents in India"

[furyrider]

Originally Posted by speedmiester

Haryana locals tried to stop 'drunk' driver before bus crash, snatched his key

I just went through the article, and it made my blood boil! This is murder, not an accident. There is no other way to put this.

Some excerpts from the article:

...These villagers were requested to give the key back to Dharmender, and were assured of sending a new driver in the future...

Unfortunate that a so-called educated school principal requested to return the key to the drunkard. In this case, the "villagers" had more common sense than the school principal. I hope our judiciary makes an example out of the principal. Wishful thinking, I know!

...Not just the villagers, some parents had also pointed out the driver's drinking habit to the school authorities...

...the children had constantly pleaded with the driver to slow down and avoid rash driving. However, he dismissed their requests and even threatened them...

The driver was a repeat offender, and the school took no action. This is a disaster waiting to happen and happen it did! My heart goes out to the innocent children who lost their lives due to sheer negligence of the school. The poor parents will never recover from their loss!

..the district education officer sent a proposal to the state government to cancel the school's recognition as it was functioning on Eid. This action has been taken along with the show-cause notice...

Good riddance considering the callous attitude of the school administration. However, I feel sorry for the kids enrolled at the school. While moving all the currently enrolled children to another school in itself is a daunting task, they have to face a nightmare to get documentation in the future. The school I studied in shut down and I had to get an education certificate from the school (some weird local/non-local rules for admission to college). My father ran pillar to post to get the necessary documentation. Finally, we were able to get hold of the founder/director who luckily still had some official letter heads with him and gave us the undertaking we wanted.

..fitness certificate of the bus expired in 2018...

...An assistant secretary in the office of district-transport-cum-secretary, Mahendragarh, was also suspended after it came to light that the bus lacked certain documentation...

And the officials finally started their damage control measures. Rather than scrutinizing the fitness of the bus, it would be great if the officials focus on the "fitness" of the drivers. There are incidents where improper maintenance of vehicle might have caused an accident. This though is no accident, rather I would consider this as murder of innocent children in broad day light.

[RunGaDa]

Originally Posted by MalnadMansha

No matter how bad they drive, the driving school people have tie-ups with the inspector who sits in the car to evaluate the driver and almost everyone gets a license.

Absolutely. We are having an unwanted distinction of being accident capital of the world and still these things don’t change. One of the tests I had observed a rank villager who probably sat in the driving seat second time went into the channel for driving test. He turned the steering like a two wheeler, turned to right and looked right. The car climbed on the periphery wall. He was immediately taken out.

[RM Motorsports]

Two people died on the spot and three others were injured, when their speeding Hyundai lost control and rammed into a stationary car, near Gurramguda X road in Vanasthalipuram.

[madhavgpai]

Originally Posted by anilsurya1985

1) Don't hit the road in late night when you already had hectic day, coz you will feel tired and there is high chance of mishaps.

Even if you are well rested and ready to drive in the night, there is a high chance the other driver is driving in the night after a hectic and tiring long day.

Originally Posted by anjan_c2007

The driver was drunk and was playing with the lives of innocent school children

The biggest problem with drinking in general is that drunk people get behind a wheel while they are already predisposed to poor judgement calls, being under influence.

If someone needs to be aware that he/she isn't that invincible/capable enough to get in the driver seat, they need to be very humble otherwise, they must be someone respecting and following much simpler rules of the road and life.

If someone is sober and texts/talks on the mobile while driving, he/she will definitely get behind the wheel after heavy drinking.

[MyLife_MyCar]

Originally Posted by madhavgpai

Even if you are well rested and ready to drive in the night, there is a high chance the other driver is driving in the night after a hectic and tiring long day.

If you take everything into consideration, then accidents can happen even when one is relaxing in their homes. There’s no escape.

What this forum teach us is how to become a better driver yourself. Not about how to make other drivers better (which eventually will happen if everyone makes themselves a better driver) .

[madhavgpai]

Originally Posted by MyLife_MyCar

If you take everything into consideration, then accidents can happen even when one is relaxing in their homes. There’s no escape.

What I said and what you suggested don't have probability in the same ballpark. At night, be ready to be surprised at how many truckers are driving under the influence.

I just pointed out a viable sizable threat.

[MyLife_MyCar]

Originally Posted by madhavgpai

What I said and what you suggested don't have probability in the same ballpark. At night, be ready to be surprised at how many truckers are driving under the influence.

I just pointed out a viable sizable threat.

That’s correct, which brings me back to the point I made:

Originally Posted by MyLife_MyCar

If you take everything into consideration, then accidents can happen even when one is relaxing in their homes. There’s no escape.

They are not in the same ballpark, but all I wanted to emphasise was that we cannot control the variables around us. For e.g., we cannot control how other drives.
I can only control how I drive, which in this context is :
1. Don’t drive when tired (irrespective of day/night)
2. Don’t drive under the influence

One cannot completely give up driving at night just because there are others driving under the influence.

Threats are always there: day or night, car or train or flight, inside or outside the house… and so on.

[airguitar]

Originally Posted by KA20NexonEV

Many drivers in India are yet to get accustomed to high speed driving on highways. Most of them are unaware of the limitations of the car that they are driving.

Totally! I was driving at a good speed (just a tad below the limit on the highway) on the right lane of the Bangalore - Kanyakumari highway and suddenly there is this Harrier showing up on the IRVM, gaining on me all the time; the lane left to me is occupied too and he was barely a couple of feet behind me with nowhere to go and not slowing down and flashing lights and honking and trying to dangerously squeeze between the 2 cars cutting across 2 lanes.

But otherwise, I was pleasantly surprised yesterday as to how everyone was driving sane yesterday evening (Madurai - Bangalore). Hardly any maniacs on display yesterday.

[Zippy_wheels]

Originally Posted by airguitar

Totally! I was driving at a good speed (just a tad below the limit on the highway) on the right lane of the Bangalore - Kanyakumari highway and suddenly there is this Harrier showing up on the IRVM, gaining on me all the time; the lane left to me is occupied too and he was barely a couple of feet behind me with nowhere to go and not slowing down and flashing lights and honking and trying to dangerously squeeze between the 2 cars cutting across 2 lanes.

If this was a 3 lane road and you were on the right-most lane (overtaking lane) shouldn't you move to the middle lane to let him/others overtake? I think the you need to get on the overtaking lane and then move back to the middle lane after overtaking and stay on the middle lane.

Of course I am assuming that this was a 3 lane road and that you were yourself not in the process of overtaking - just driving on the overtaking lane.

[RunGaDa]

Originally Posted by madhavgpai

The biggest problem with drinking in general is that drunk people get behind a wheel while they are already predisposed to poor judgement calls, being under influence
.

The bite of the law is lacking. If they set the process right, from apprehending the drunk driver, getting his blood alcohol checked under signed authorised doctor with a provision of slapping a case in case found false, then showing the driver the rule book when he is sober.
Why not have mandatory 10 year jail for drunk driver causing accident and resulting in a death of an innocent?
Where is the issue for not bringing this law?

We can see the TAMASHAA of police rounding up scores of vehicles towards quarter end / year end when they have to meet targets. Then they setup barricades on year ends.
But despite all this the number of drunk drivers increased.
We hear no one telling in fear that don’t drive when drunk, you will lose a decade of your life.
That is the problem.
Too much leeway.
With the number of new vehicles daily getting in the road only strongest laws will help. A law that will send chills down the spine.
Nothing else will. Until then innocents and rule followers have life hanging in balance.

[krishnakumar]

Originally Posted by airguitar

Totally! I was driving at a good speed (just a tad below the limit on the highway) on the right lane of the Bangalore - Kanyakumari highway… the lane left to me is occupied too

Not condoning the dangerous/rash behaviour by Harrier. But occupying the right most lane is not the right practice and would invite unwanted trouble from such people (like Harrier) in doing so. I am not aware of the exact circumstances of your situation but taking this as a segue and sharing how such situations should be dealt with (in my opinion) for the benefit of all.

If both lanes were occupied and the Harrier was trying to squeeze, by virtue of this statement, my assumption is that both cars would have been moving at similar speeds and close to each other / near parallel while occupying both lanes. This situation invites trouble.

We should always leave sufficient gap between vehicles around us in a highway for any wayward vehicle to pass through without creating a dangerous situation for ourselves.

There are two scenarios when such a situation would present itself:

1. The vehicle on the left lane is at similar speeds to us: We have two options in this case to respond, we should either fall back to maintain a 3sec gap with the vehicle and preferably place your car in the left/middle lane if available, or, we should overtake using the right lane and move in front of the vehicle to maintain a sufficient gap (again positioning into left/middle lane). If the vehicle we overtake starts closing in again, let that vehicle pass and fall back.

2. We are overtaking the vehicle on left lane, using the right lane, when another wayward vehicle from the rear is closing in and wanting to overtake - Honestly, the only REAL way of avoiding this situation is to plan every single overtake in advance. I make it a point to check my IRVMs (quick swift glances) every 20-30sec or so on highways to see how vehicles behind me are closing in. Idea is that if you see a vehicle closing in much faster than you are maintain the gap to vehicles around you and in front of you (even if you’re faster than those vehicles) for that wayward vehicle closing in on you to pass through. It’ll be much safer to overtake post that, but this can only be done if the overtake is planned in advance being aware of other vehicles closing in.


Of course, there will be edge cases where both scenarios don’t apply and there we have to be instinctive. But regular practice of both 1 and 2, ensures that even our instincts are better primed adding to the fact that the edge case only remains an edge case.