[vinit.merchant]

Young people riding fast in city has become a rage these days. While returning from Lonavala to Pune on 15th, at the PCMC stretch, I came across a group of KTM riders. They were probably returning from independence drive. Those who are not aware, the middle stretch is a fast lane, has 2 lanes and bypasses all signals. These guys were all wearing proper gear, but the driving was ridiculous. They way they were cutting through the traffic at high speed was insane, at times passing between two cars, while being just inches away from each.
Even if there is a slight steering input by any of these cars they are cutting through so close, a mere touch will send their bikes out of control and we know how badly it will end up. My car was doing some 70 and they were zipping through, so they must be doing at least 100.

This is the highway scene. I have seen young blood drive in similar fashion within city traffic, irrespective of the brand of bikes they drive. Activas, splendors, anything they can get their hands on. There have been moments where, in my office commute which is barely 2.5 kms, I have seen such insane people coming at great speeds from the right on a right turn, and I had to apply breaks in anticipation of stupidity, and they barely manage to squeeze through my car and the beginning of the divider on the right.

I never really understood whats with so much of hurry everywhere by everyone, nowadays. No one wants to stop at the red light, no one wants to stand in traffic - so they take the footpaths and the opposite lanes, everyone wants to squeeze through even when the traffic is light.

[jayantvs]

Originally Posted by vinit.merchant

...I never really understood whats with so much of hurry everywhere by everyone, nowadays. No one wants to stop at the red light, no one wants to stand in traffic - so they take the footpaths and the opposite lanes, everyone wants to squeeze through even when the traffic is light.

90% of the people are not at all in hurry they just create chaos because they do not want to waste time on the road. They believe that the right of way has to be taken otherwise they will simply be waiting for others to give you way. Every other car or bike which is following me just want to get ahead of me for no specific reason

I did contribute to such panic a few years ago and used to do the same but with age I have got my wisdom

[lawdgawd]

From the video, it does not look like 150 kmph. You can't zigzag at those speeds, or even at much lower speeds. But he basically got only a fraction of a second to see the old man crossing.

[Chetan_Rao]

The dead 17-year old had a 'biker' dad, and was apparently riding in a KTM-organised event (both claims per new article). There aren't enough of these emojis

[kavensri]

Slightly
No offence to the riders of these 'power' bikes. But, so far I have not seen even a single 'power' biker riding at a normal speed. They behave as if it is their 'birth' right to ride at 'higher' speed than the regular traffic, irrespective of the traffic/road condition.

[reignofchaos]

The fathers/mothers are the ones solely to blame for teens and early tweens losing their lives to biking accidents. Its the perfect cocktail for self destruction - a lot of adrenalin, a lot of ego, no training given to riders, no safety precautions adhered to, lax laws with regards to licenses, no ladder for buying high powered bikes - you name it.

When I was 18, I asked my dad for a bike. All I got from dad was a cheque to get myself into a driving school. He didn't even offer me the keys to the family car until he was completely convinced I could drive one properly. As for bikes, all I got was a long lecture on how they are unsafe and how he'd not buy me one.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by reignofchaos

... a lot of adrenalin, a lot of ego, no training given to riders, no safety precautions adhered to, lax laws with regards to licenses, no ladder for buying high powered bikes - you name it. ...

Testosterone is probably the real killer. Along with the rest.

And, kudos to your dad

[barcalad]

I'm posting something lengthy after ages, but I guess I needed to get this off my chest.

I have followed this Delhi Superbike Accident incident very closely primarily because it happened just a stone's throw away from my brother's office. Here are some of my thoughts.

You can wear all the safety gear and glue in all the action cams on yourself, but at the end of the day, if you're going to ride like a doofus just because you want to wreck people's peace with your annoyingly loud exhaust note, you'll get no sympathy from me. You've painted a bulls eye on every 200cc+ geared/ungeared biker in town for the next two weeks. We all know how that usually ends. People generalize you, people stereo-type you and people even murmur behind your back that you're a "rich" or "spoilt" individual because you own a lifestyle motorcycle. Every time your crash because you couldn't tame that split - second adrenaline rush of yours, we all suffer. We all.

Just today, I came to know that Delhi Police shall launch a crackdown against bikers. Mind you, a quarter of these bikers will be the guys who don't let their hormones get the better of them and ride responsibly, even though they have a liter class machine under them. They'll be un-necessarily stopped, questioned and after finding no legal fault, they'll be challaned for having their number plate pasted on their front mudguard.

One man's (he is not a kid that you'll blame his father) fault, and the entire community suffers. I have ridden on that very same stretch as these three naive individuals umpteen times. Jay walkers galore, at any time of the day. Me however, even in the darkest of hours (12-3 AM) when there's not a soul in sight, have never gone above 60 kmph because the road has uneven bumps and a slight zig zag that most new riders will be unable to see before hand and take precaution. Just because the road lane dividers are painted in fresh white, it doesn't mean you simply take off assuming that there'll be no danger.

Regarding the 17 year old kid who crashed his 390, yes, I will blame his "biker' father. You bought a bike and illegally handed it over to your adolescent kid to ride, who probably doesn't even have a DL. Lots of stick to KTM too, for not verifying his documents and focusing more on meeting crowd targets. Both ought to be taken to court, in my opinion.

At the end of the day, all I expect from the sane, passionate and enthusiastic automobile community to not stereo-type. Not every KTM rider is a squid. Not every super-biker is reckless. Yes, there are many, but I and every other biker I personally know are absolutely not so.

A belated Happy Independence Day and Janmashtami greetings to all.

[pkulkarni.2106]

I fail to understand *few* (read: not all) 'power' bikers. What's the hurry? More importantly, why they can't understand that the public roads aren't meant for racing?

Yesterday night I was going to Baner to pick my wife up from her office. As I was climbing the University flyover, I heard loud exhaust of a super bike and he zipped past me, cutting through vehicles in front. Note that the University flyover isn't a place you'd want to go fast on. It has many potholes, and the flyover joints have huge/uneven gaps in them.

Coming back to the incident, that chap wanted to take a left turn and head towards Baner, that's where he spotted an elderly man with his bike stopped on the side of the flyover and talking on mobile! I saw this power biker apply immediate brakes and *looked* like his bike fishtailed (I'm not sure as by this time he was a good distance ahead of me). If there was a small error from this biker, I'm sure the case would've been different.

[aditya.bhardwaj]

Alright then, let me be very clear in putting down the facts with regards to the Benelli incident.

A very close friend of mine puts up at Vivek Vihar, Delhi and i keep visiting his house to meet him and his family. I have seen this chap riding his Benelli a couple of times. The number of times i had seen him, he was either riding with slippers on with no riding gear whatsoever ( forget a helmet ) or with a helmet but kept on the tank. My close friend also knew this guy as he also owned a TNT 600i.

This guy used to rev the nuts of the motorcycle and we had seen him speeding on the residential streets multiple times. You could hear him coming due to the exhaust note of the motorcycle.

Riding like a freak on a residential area where its a single lane road ( and half of the road is already taken by parked vehicles ), we surely imagined something would happen sooner or later. Morons like him never realize the value of life at stake.

I am so sorry but i have no sympathy for such people. And with respect to his parents who said that they were against the idea of getting him a "high powered" motorcycle, he was soon to be gifted with a Kawasaki ZX10R.

I really sometimes don't understand what kind of thought process goes on within their so called brains.

Its a shame that because of such people on our roads, real motorcyclists and enthusiasts face the problem with the authorities

[pixantz]

Not to defend any errant bikers or anyone else, but I think this whole fiasco arises from the fact that vehicular traffic and pedestrian traffic is not properly segregated properly infrastructure-wise. That's a lot to ask I suppose, from the current state of how things are going on in our part of the world. We have just began moving on from bullock-cart speed traffic what with faster, more powerful vehicles, wider and planer highways and generally more roads being put down. But the infrastructure development is not smart enough as I see it. At least logically. And the pedestrian mentality is still in Bullock cart ages as of now.

"Expesseways" are not cordoned and near villages Bullock carts can share the roads/junctions with Merc and Jags. No, it's not something to be proud of and say, "it happens only in India". It's mostly a deadly concoction. Ideally there should be an underpass or overbrige at every expressway junction. But who cares. There are umpteen small yet critical errors like these which go unnoticed. Unless these are corrected, the sad loss of precious lives and resulting ranting is going to continue. We have to face it.

People still cross at any part of the road at any time anywhere and think it's always the vehicles who should be bound with rules. Segregating these two will logically solve the ego tussle. Along with the need to decide about who was right and who was wrong.

As time passes, the relative average speed of vehicles on roads and highways is only going to increase. It has to. There are more people who want to go to more places more swiftly. Cities are developing and so is the need for more adept, more efficient means of transportation. For example, in India if traffic is slower than about 20kmph or so, we call it a traffic jam. Whereas in a place like say, Abu Dhabi, if speeds are slower than 120kph, they call it traffic jam. We're moving towards those speeds here too in the future. So we will have to grow up and do something about it and understand what's happening as a bigger picture.

Just my two cents.

[sparky@home]

These youngster’s don’t need super bikes for over speeding, any bike is good enough. Yesterday near my place there was an accident in which 2 youngster’s lost their lives. They were speeding and overtaking a bus on a narrow road and ran right into an oncoming truck, and that was it, death was instantaneous.
I think the rules are not being implemented properly, where the fine for over speeding, reckless driving etc is just not punishment enough. Kerala is a state where the accident rate is very high.

[pixantz]

Originally Posted by sparky@home

These youngster’s don’t need super bikes for over speeding, any bike is good enough.

Kerala is a state where the accident rate is very high.

You said it. Even I don't really agree with the ""super-bike" bashing. You don't need a super-bike to kill yourself. Certainly not in India at least. Here, even a cycle will do. The roads are so full of idiots that you can might as well die standing!

About Kerala, yes, traffic laws seem to be something nobody seems to know exist. Ditto for other south states like Karnataka etc. TN seems better of except the Bus guys.

[lawdgawd]

Originally Posted by pixantz

You said it. Even I don't really agree with the ""super-bike" bashing. You don't need a super-bike to kill yourself. Certainly not in India at least. Here, even a cycle will do. The roads are so full of idiots that you can might as well die standing!

About Kerala, yes, traffic laws seem to be something nobody seems to know exist. Ditto for other south states like Karnataka etc. TN seems better of except the Bus guys.

Have to disagree about Kerala. I was a bike rider there in the early 90s, when a 100cc bike could be faster than the sundry 800s and Esteems and traffic was probably a tenth of what it is today. I gave up riding soon after moving to Mumbai. The risk-reward ratio was not working out. I definitely did not want to die because of someone else's fault. Something that can happen very easily in a metro with faster cars, smoother roads and signal-to-signal racing that everyone indulges in.

When I go to visit Kerala, what I see are traffic cops at every nook and corner. This has been the case since the 90s. Because of this, there is no lack of awareness of laws at all. The cops would catch you and fine you, for the smallest infraction.

However, the sheer number of new vehicles on the road and the massive car-bike population on the road means forward movement at a reasonable pace is very tough to achieve - and everyone loses their patience and makes a mistake. If not today, tomorrow. This I believe is the primary reason for accidents in Kerala. Certainly accidents happen due to young people and extra adrenalin, careless riding and driving by many, and so on - but the primary reason is impatience in traffic that makes people discard laws and common sense every so often.

[Midas]

Whenever these kind of super-bike accidents happen, we would always see comments saying that we shouldn't stereotype super-bike and many people drive rashly with even normal bikes.

But, I don't think anyone buys a super bike for the sole purpose routine needs like going to the supermarket 1km away, going to the office etc. It's not purchased just as a means of transport. On the other hand, reason is one or many among: showing off (money & skills), crazy driving, fad, passion of riding etc.

No one buys super bike and drive sedately like a splendor under 70km/h with sedate acceleration. Lot of these riders don't realize that they don't have skills and reflexes of Valentino Rossi, but still try to emulate him. Moreover, these are meant to be driven with those insane speeds, acceleration etc in race tracks, or at least in roads like Autobahn, similar freeways or roads with less traffic density. What can you say when these people drive like crazy within city limits of Delhi, Bangalore etc. when there is lots of traffic congestion and many uncertainties like potholes, jaywalkers, traffic violations etc. ? It's just stupid, irresponsible and arrogant behaviour and the belief that they are invincible/immortal.

About the argument that it's all about driver, not the bike- A large number people who do all kinds of crazy stunts in normal bikes would have bought a superbike if they could afford it. So, if you look at it, majority of normal bikes are bought as a means of transport. But on the other hand, purpose something more than just commute in the case of superbikes. So, the stereotyping has some truth to it.

I know that a lot of bike riders & super bike owners who are reading this might be already fuming and about to bash me. But, please understand that this is not a blanket criticism on all the bikers. I know that there are many responsible drivers and professional racers who don't do these kinds of stunts on public roads unless it's very safe to every one road. So, my criticism is not aimed at you and you don't have to get offended. But, if you are one of those irresponsible riders who don't understand the limits of your skills, bike and road conditions, then please understand that you are not just putting your own life at risk. Some others also will get in to an accident trying to save you during your stunts.

Sorry for the long rant. I'm really disappointed & depressed after seeing same kind of unavoidable accidents repeatedly appearing in this thread.

PS: I don't have any grudge against bike riders. Personally I don't ride two wheeler anymore due to the risk factor involved, especially after seeing some of my friends and acquaintances losing life & getting injured in bike accidents (in some cases, due to mistake of others). I know that I'm missing out on the convenience and fun of riding two wheeler. Only relief is the goosebumps I get while watching MotoGP.