[sagarpadaki]

Originally Posted by silversteed

Very unfortunate. Setting the bus on fire is only helping the owner. He would claim insurance compensation and buy another bus.

A little bit OT, we had this menace of lorries that carry hay. They stuff the hay so much on top that it touches some of the electricity lines hanging between poles on either side of the road. Some of them are driven so rash that once the entire area lost power because one such truck broke the lines and fell two electricity posts. Some angry youth set the truck ablaze. Result? The same owner sent a brand new truck a few weeks after. On asking the crew, they said the insurance paid for the damages and he didn't incur any losses. Then, we decided that we'll not set fire or damage the vehicle, but will certainly damage the people responsible - with their time and money.

No insurance claim can be settled in a few weeks. Besides I doubt if these private bus operator have any insurance in the first place .

[silversteed]

Originally Posted by sagarpadaki

No insurance claim can be settled in a few weeks. Besides I doubt if these private bus operator have any insurance in the first place .

I know. The incident is almost a decade old. The owner wouldn't care about the truck that caught fire, as he knew that the insurance would pay for the damages. And the incident that I mentioned, involved a truck, and not a bus. The point is, venting our anger by setting the vehicle ablaze is nothing for the owner. Like you said, it's true that many private buses do not have any insurance at all.

[sagarpadaki]

Originally Posted by silversteed

I know. The incident is almost a decade old. The owner wouldn't care about the truck that caught fire, as he knew that the insurance would pay for the damages. And the incident that I mentioned, involved a truck, and not a bus. The point is, venting our anger by setting the vehicle ablaze is nothing for the owner. Like you said, it's true that many private buses do not have any insurance at all.

Agreed that venting the anger by setting the vehicle on fire is not the right thing. But the people would have been so frustrated from these rash drivers that they would have been waiting for something like this to happen to vent their anger out.

Setting ablaze a bus results in a total loss for the bus owner. It causes significat damage to his operations and will definitely affect him! Also investing in a new bus is not exactly cheap! Hence such incidents should cause some sort of panic among the owners !

[amikacin]

At least 30 people are feared to have lost their lives. The volvo on way to Hyderabad from Bangalore hit an oil tanker and caught fire early Wednesday morning in Mahbubnagar district, AP.

Ref: Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/i...w/24905665.cms

[Superleggera]

Originally Posted by amikacin

At least 30 people are feared to have lost their lives. The volvo on way to Hyderabad from Bangalore hit an oil tanker and caught fire early Wednesday morning in Mahbubnagar district, AP.

Ref: Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/i...w/24905665.cms

Looks like the bus belonged to Jabbar Travels and the death toll is around 40 now. This is really tragic.

[JothamSutharson]

is it really safe nowadays to travel in Air conditioned buses???? I thought the multiaxles were safe.....tragic!!!!

[arun_josie]

As per the news channels, the fuel tank of the bus hit a culvert and burst in to flames. This happened while overtaking a car at high speed.
http://www.ndtv.com/article/south/bu...ed-dead-439124

[treadmark]

In continuation to the above. Saw this image on Twitter!
It looks like the bus is completely burnt and not sure whether the Body In white structure had remained?
Now the causalities have increase to 40 and 5 more are undergoing treatment.
All we can say now is let all these souls may RIP

[aaggoswami]

Originally Posted by arun_josie

As per the news channels, the fuel tank of the bus hit a culvert and burst in to flames. This happened while overtaking a car at high speed.
http://www.ndtv.com/article/south/bu...ed-dead-439124

There was a similar case of another vehicle hitting Volvo bus fuel tank and the bus was in flames. This had happened in Gujarat quite a while ago. Similar to the tragedy discusses here, the door of Volvo bus in Gujarat were stuck and the driver was quickly engulfed in flames, just could not do anything and doors did not open. A few passengers managed to break open the windows and escaped. This was at a time when Volvo had just set the benchmark for bus travel. I started preferring local buses from AL and Tata ( non AC ) whenever I had to travel by bus.

The incident is really tragic and brings on the focus of emergency exit in buses discussed here.

The driver is also to be blamed equally for a reported high speed drive/overtaking stunts. On Vadodara-A'bad express-highway, I have seen Volvo, Isuzu and a few other buses driven at high speeds, overtaking me while I am doing 110-115 in Baleno. Quite a lot of speed specially when we consider the more than 40 lives travelling in bus and the Indian operating conditions. The state govt. buses running on CNG have a speed limiter or some electronic circuit where in a small red light will glow on a board fixed below instrument console if the driver crosses 80 kmph. Note that Express way has speed limit of 80 for heavy vehicles.

[Dry Ice]

Originally Posted by amikacin

At least 30 people are feared to have lost their lives. The volvo on way to Hyderabad from Bangalore hit an oil tanker and caught fire early Wednesday morning in Mahbubnagar district, AP.

Ref: Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/i...w/24905665.cms

Originally Posted by Superleggera

Looks like the bus belonged to Jabbar Travels and the death toll is around 40 now. This is really tragic.

Originally Posted by arun_josie

As per the news channels, the fuel tank of the bus hit a culvert and burst in to flames. This happened while overtaking a car at high speed.
http://www.ndtv.com/article/south/bu...ed-dead-439124

Really sad.

Every time I traveled Hyd-Blr-Hyd, all the buses took NH7, which was in splendid shape - wide and well lit. How is the Mehaboob nagar route, I mean the road conditions? Could be the driver got fatigued on this route more than the usual NH7 one. I am guessing they took this route to directly move from Karnataka to Telengana and avoid the troublesome spots along the NH7.

I always preferred HKB on this route as there was always a change of drivers around 2-3 am - around the midway point in the journey.

[vindrider2626]

A Tragic news to hear this diwali.The authorities ought to put some speed regulations on these long distance buses plying on the national highways at night.The empty roads make the drivers drive like maniacs, and with almost all passengers asleep, an accident is bound to have huge casualities.Why not install speed governors on these vehicles?

[sandsun7]

Originally Posted by Dry Ice

Really sad.

Every time I traveled Hyd-Blr-Hyd, all the buses took NH7, which was in splendid shape - wide and well lit. How is the Mehaboob nagar route, I mean the road conditions? Could be the driver got fatigued on this route more than the usual NH7 one.

Some news agencies have reported that the accident occurred at a place called Kothakota, on the NH7 itself. This is approximately 135 kms away from Hyderabad, and is in Mehboobnagar district, as per google maps.

Link here: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/i.../24915158.cms?

[arun_josie]

Originally Posted by vindrider2626

The empty roads make the drivers drive like maniacs, and with almost all passengers asleep, an accident is bound to have huge casualities.Why not install speed governors on these vehicles?

Adding to that most of these volvo buses have just one driver and sometimes even without the cleaner, especially on the 4L routes.

Came across this video, a volvo bus escapes by inches,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocuogDG2BGI

[poloman]

In these kind of air conditioned window less buses, passengers should be given a safety demo just like pre flight safety demonstrations in aircrafts. This can be shown on the onboard TV, rather than showing some useless movies. They should be shown where the emergency exits are located and how to break glass in an emergency situation.

[IronH4WK]

Originally Posted by arun_josie

Came across this video, a volvo bus escapes by inches,

that maneuver is so popular among these drivers - its like playing chicken! many years back when i was traveling to my home town it was raining and the driver was trying to make up the lost time.

after Palakkad, the driver started playing chicken with the oncoming traffic. on one such maneuver, the major part of the bus crossed, but the oncoming truck struck the rear side (after the rear wheel), taking a chunk of the sheet metal with it and breaking the glass. i was sitting one seat before the rear wheel, on the right side

had couple of more close shaves and then i stopped travelling by bus