[microscopic]

Met with an accident on Saturday.

I was on a personal trip and had almost reached the destination. There was only around 3-4km to go.

It was a narrow two lane road where two cars could comfortably cross each other. It was about 10 pm, I was going over a speed breaker, and there were two cars coming in the opposite direction, one behind the other. While the car coming in front was in its lane, the car following it was an old ambassador, and almost half of the car was out of its lane already.

Knowing how these guys are unruly in those rural areas, I had already moved to the leftmost part of my lane and was sure enough to pass through.

But this guy driving the ambassador, under whichever influence he was, suddenly swerved into my lane fully. Realizing that it was going to be a head-on collision, I swerved fully to my left, and the ambassador swept through the entire right side of my car. While I stopped immediately, the other guy fled the scene.

It took me a moment to let the incident sink in and assess the damage. Fortunately, the engine compartment and headlights were intact, so I was able to continue driving.

Completed my trip, and dropped the car at the Honda service center who have dropped another bombshell. I was mostly expecting around 25k to 30k including denting and painting, whereas the ASC has given a quote of around Rs.70k to repair the damage.

They have claimed that both the right doors have to be replaced along with denting & painting the entire right side of the car. Waiting for the insurance to clear the estimate and authorize the ASC to proceed with further work.

[ads11]

Originally Posted by ashishmacaden

UK is talking about legalizing a “Dutch Reach” law to prevent this. Open the door with the farthest hand so that you are turning to look back before opening. https://www.theaa.com/driving-advice/safety/dutch-reach

I have a rather traumatic formative tale from my childhood of learning about the Dutch Reach the hard way.

I must've been 6 or 7, we were in India. I went to grab something back out the car. Remember sitting in the driver's seat for a few moments entertaining myself pretending to drive. In a cheery mood, I swung the door open, smack bang broadside into a passing cyclist who naturally takes a huge tumble into the road. Said cyclist sprung up to give me a slap but by then the shopkeeper opposite had run out, seeing me in distress and intervened. The cyclist too could see how traumatised I was by the mistake and composed himself, warning me to check before opening a door into traffic, belatedly limping off. I still remember my visceral horror when I realised what I'd done. Took a lot of cajoling to soothe me but to this day I still flinch when I notice other people carelessly flinging their doors open without checking for passers by, let alone wheeled traffic.

I'm not sure how effective it'll be as a law to enforce but if it were me, it's the sort of thing you'd drill into children at primary school level the way you get taught core safety habits like stranger danger and looking both ways before crossing. That's probably the best thing we can do. Get in early, make core safety concepts like these part of the curriculum in fact.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by ads11

I have a rather traumatic formative tale from my childhood...

That is a great story of a lesson learned as a child that stuck for life. You are lucky that there was not more damage to the rider or the car, and you are wise to have never forgotten it.

[Mystic]

Horrific fatal accident. May their souls RIP. I travelled on this ghat with my Jimny last year. I was surprised that the road was very broad but too steep. I thought something wrong with design being a civil engineer myself.

Now, the police saying that accidents are very common on this ghat due to wrong engineering design and vehicles fall in valley but in this particular accident, the truck fell on car:

https://www.ap7am.com/en/101495/five...adapa-district

https://youtu.be/y5vIZNGaq1c?feature=shared

https://youtu.be/q6wS0AnqqWw?feature=shared

[Mystic]

One more video of the above horrific accident. They are all in my native language Telugu. I could not find any video in English as of now.

https://youtu.be/f0RFNGY1iuE?feature=shared

My take on this kind of accidents in ghats:

1. Vehicles coming down in neutral to save on costly gas in India.

2. Trucks with overload which is common in India loose their balance in Ghats.

3. These days, the small powerful cars manoeuvre through ghats very fast and squeeze in small areas which are in truck blind spots. Being in wrong place at wrong time.

4. This particular ghat as per my personal observation is very scenic and beautiful. The road is also very broad which gives a wrong impression to the driver he can go fast just like highway.

5. I am not sure if it is possible technically to reevaluate engineering design of all our ghat roads in India and collect data from Police in the frequent accidents at certain curves. A barrier and a big visual display for drivers to be extra cautious is necessary.

6. In these accident prone curves, cameras must be installed and the drivers driving irresponsibly must be punished.

[kannan666]

English article of the accident - https://www.newindianexpress.com/sta...andhra-pradesh

[GeeTee TSI]

Originally Posted by Mystic

One more video of the above horrific accident. They are all in my native language Telugu. I could not find any video in English as of now.

https://Youtu.be/f0RFNGY1iuE?feature=shared

Absolutely horrendous. Did the runaway (supposedly) truck ram into the car from behind and then topple over it with its payload?

While we as drivers can look out for oncoming traffic, I wonder what are the options if a truck barrels down from behind on a narrow ghat road. Engineering solutions (runaway zone, reinforced barricades to name a few) should be explored in accident prone areas than just stick an accident prone sign board.

[tbppjpr]

All the lovers of blinding LED floodlights do not realize how fatal their ignorant act can be.

Watch the live example of glaring bright high-beam of an oncoming vehicle causes serious accident here:

https://www.facebook.com/sumits.kali...WGVFDm7LabcmKl

Worst trend these days is to first reduce the visibility by installing black film on the front windshield of the vehicle for so called all black gangsta look and then install high-power illegal headlights to compensate the reduced visibility during night, but this act just leads into blinding others.

[Mystic]

Originally Posted by GeeTee TSI

Absolutely horrendous. Did the runaway (supposedly) truck ram into the car from behind and then topple over it with its payload?

While we as drivers can look out for oncoming traffic, I wonder what are the options if a truck barrels down from behind on a narrow ghat road. Engineering solutions (runaway zone, reinforced barricades to name a few) should be explored in accident prone areas than just stick an accident prone sign board.

We can only speculate at this point in time and I am not sure if we ever know what exactly happened. What I understand:

1. Engineering design problem is a known issue here. I understand that Govt sanctioned a tunnel to mitigate this issue with this ghat road. Lot of heavy vehicles fell into the valley at this curve. May be the slope is too steep and due to the road width too wide tends to make the driver drive fast. In fact a tourist bus crashed on the previous day into the huge pile of earth in that curve. May be they should stop heavy vehicles on this ghat as there is an alternative route as well. Speed limit must be enforced strictly on this ghat.

2. it looks like the car and the truck are going down the curve at the same time in parallel. We donot know why this is the case. The truck was trying to avoid the car and lost balance and the load fell on the car crushing it.

3. The car in front has no control on rear end crashes especially when stopping at traffic lights between two trucks. Always keep car tyres turned so that in case a heavy truck crashes from behind, the car will be moved away from road instead of being pushed under the truck in front.

[carhead]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yk-EoDwaXA&forced

A typical day in India (Kolkata) where we nonchalantly flout road safety & traffic rules. No wonder 1.5 lac people are tragically killed annually in road accidents.

I was sitting in a Nexon when this accident occurred. I still cant figure out if the biker was wearing helmet or not.

Who is more at fault? rickshaw or the bike?

[Small Bot]

Originally Posted by tbppjpr

All the lovers of blinding LED floodlights do not realize how fatal their ignorant act can be.

Watch the live example of glaring bright high-beam of an oncoming vehicle causes serious accident here:

Highly unfortunate. The car driver (is that an Etios btw?) should have probably slowed down a bit when visibility was compromised, but I don't know if he could have fully avoided the accident, especially when the bus in front was also not showing any visible tail lights. Terrible situation to be in.

I always feel that people who install such illegal high beams and try to terrorize others on the road with them should be made to stand in front of them and stare into those lights for at least 5 seconds.

For a person like me, who has light sensitivity issues and cannot venture outside without powered sunglasses or photochromatic glasses, this is like a horror movie scene.

Originally Posted by carhead

Who is more at fault? rickshaw or the bike?

I hate to be that guy, but my view is that the bike rider is majorly at fault here. If he had stuck to his lane, the rickshaw driver pulling off this stunt would be a non-issue. The original sin here is the wrong side driving by the bike rider. Because, if not for the rickshaw, the next object the bike rider hits is the cammer's car.

And I think the helmet was probably dangling from the handlebar or something. It went flying, even before the rider did.

[Gennex]

Road Accident: four youth died after their speeding two wheeler was hit by a speeding car on gorakhpur varanasi national highway https://www.eenadu.net/videos/playvi...ighway/1/68880

Horrifying to see, no comments on casualty. Th accident was at Gorakhpur -Varanasi highway.

[kaps454]

Originally Posted by Gennex

Road Accident: four youth died after their speeding two wheeler was hit by a speeding car on gorakhpur varanasi national highway https://www.eenadu.net/videos/playvi...ighway/1/68880

Horrifying to see, no comments on casualty. Th accident was at Gorakhpur -Varanasi highway.

Not a speeding SUV vs speeding bikers. A tractor and a two wheeler were being driven on the wrong side .

The SUV, constrained for space, ended up running into the two-wheeler rather than the tractor trolley. No attempt at braking, no lights, nothing.

regards
kaps454

[Small Bot]

I agree with kaps454. The bike and the tractor are both on the wrong side! Four fellows on a bike, overtaking another wrong side vehicle, none wearing helmets. It's horrible that they paid for it with their lives.

Other than braking harder, I don't know what the car could have done (seems like a Grand Vitara/Hyryder).

[racer_sk]

Originally Posted by carhead

http://www.Youtube.com/watch?v=9yk-EoDwaXA&forced

A typical day in India (Kolkata) where we nonchalantly flout road safety & traffic rules. No wonder 1.5 lac people are tragically killed annually in road accidents.

I was sitting in a Nexon when this accident occurred. I still cant figure out if the biker was wearing helmet or not.

Who is more at fault? rickshaw or the bike?

It's fault of Max Verstappen [IYKYK] teaching everyone to drive like him, I will go for the gap you choose whether you want to crash or not. This will be understood by F1 fans.

In this case I think, both could have avoided but both chose to roll the dice. Still, from primary looks it seems biker was distracted or not watching at all.

With each passing day people's driving is becoming more aggressive, where they drive with less regards for others on roads and keeping their common sense at home as well. Some primary behaviors observed are:

• Driving 4 wheeler as if its a 2 wheeler with lane cutting and switching lanes on will and what not.
• Using the high beam all the time and not switching to dipper even when you flash tem.
• Driving slowly than usual in the right most lane, even now many car and 2 wheerlers do this. They don't bother to move even if you honk them.

Not really sure how