[SKC-auto]

Originally Posted by sunikkat

At the same time I am surprised by posts which are supporting the bikers.

I did not see any post supporting the bikers, did anyone say it's the bikers right to park in the middle of the road?

[Gansan]

Originally Posted by sunikkat

At the same time I am surprised by posts which are supporting the bikers.

Not supporting the bikers exactly. But they are the ones who stand to lose their lives, even though they committed the mistake. Not the car driver. Recklessness of the car driver is the larger mistake here. Suppose instead of the scooter a dump truck was parked there? It would have been curtains for the car driver. Again due to his recklessness.

I am sure the driver will be caught because of the cc cameras, but rest assured a fall guy will take the rap.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Please excuse, I think there was a video, and I observed the grisly-content warning and felt I'd seen too much recently. I guess I should not then, voice any opinion. So here goes...

There is absolutely no way that any person or people should hang around in the middle of a road. In Britain, people are told not to even sit in their cars on the hard shoulder (roadside of a motorway) as collisions can and do happen even there.

There's also no excuse for hitting something that is unexpectedly found in the middle of the road.

I suspect that, ultimately, the responsibility lies with the moving driver, rather than the stationary vehicle/people. I don't know. But even if a court was to say that, under the law, this is 100%
the fault of the car driver, that leaves the biker, in the words of my Dad's old rhyme, right, dead right, but just as dead as if they'd been wrong.

[chaitanyakrish]

Perception of risks on roads is low in our country.

For a person to understand a hazard or to perceive something as a risk and take a preventive/evasive action, it needs to be wired in our head. Examples like snake, fire etc.

People use roads for all activities, so we need to be defensive while driving through a busy road.
If a road has X vehicles and Y pedestrians, there are X*Y potential accident situations for both vehicles and pedestrians.

For majority of people, traffic rules are only Red,Amber,Green lights.

[locusjag]

1) To start with, the guys lounging on the road shouldn't have done so - legally and as per common sense. Suppose a truck loses its brakes and mows them down? Or what if a passing vehicles veers off course to avoid them and unintentionally mows down a kid standing by the road? 20-30% of the fault lies with these guys.
2) The car driver had no prima facie business driving that fast in those conditions. 70-80% of the fault for the accident lies with this guy.

An addendum to #1 - not so long ago, a fellow member was reminded by everyone here that he shouldn't have stopped his car on the main carriageway; a 2 wheeler had rammed his car from behind and he had written a post on the incident.

An addendum to #2 - I have driven to a hospital that fast in those road conditions once (well, maybe not that fast) when my daughter was hurt badly after a fall. It was a risk that I was prepared to take. And in the developed world, traffic cops/judges do take a mitigating circumstance view when folks drive fast to hospitals (impending deliveries, injuries etc.) and incur speeding tickets/stops. What if the car was being driven fast with a person in need of urgent medical care? Those guys on the 2 wheeler should really not have blocked the road!

Moving on, #1 and #2 are most probably under the purview of civil law and road rules/regulations.

The fact that the car's driver hit and ran makes it a criminal case! Unless the guy ran and surrendered at a nearby police station, this is a criminal we're talking about here.

[Chetan_Rao]

There's a reason it's called a hit & run. The hit may often be accidental, the run is always intentional.

[adisan]

Seven feared dead as private bus goes up in flames after collision
Source: The News Minute

Excerpt:
The incident took place around 6.30 a.m. in the outskirts of Kamalapur taluk in Kalaburagi district on the Bidar-Srirangapatna highway. The bus was travelling from Goa to Hyderabad. Police sources said that the bus had caught fire after colliding with the tempo. The bus then collided with the side of th bridge and also veered off the road due to the impact of the accident. More than 35 passengers were travelling in the bus at the time of the accident.

[IshaanIan]

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

There can be a dozen justifiable reasons that may have caused the riders to stop in the middle of the road

Such as? Could you list half a dozen of these reasons that could have caused the riders to stop in the middle of the road, even though there was plenty of space available on the side? This is honestly a very bad disease of negligence that has crept into every city in India. Even in Hyderabad sometimes people stop right at a turn or corner to check directions, park on flyovers to take selfies, park on the second lane of a main road to wait for valet to take their car just so they can go into a starbucks I am not saying anybody deserved it but in my mind both the driver as well as the scooty riders are equally negligent and oblivious to vehicle conduct on the roads.

[amitjha086]

This happened in my hometown in Nepal earlier this morning while I was traveling to work. Nothing much serious as an Alto bumps into another at low speed. This goes on to show that we should not tailgate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2kRlXp6QVM

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by amitjha086

This goes on to show that we should not tailgate...

And that our reaction times may be considerably longer than we expect. The bumping guy actually seems very slow to react in what is obviously a dangerous situation.

[Sarvodaya]

No Words. Was lucky the rider did not crash against the transformer

https://youtu.be/CnVdMd4e4S0

[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by IshaanIan

Such as? Could you list half a dozen of these reasons that could have caused the riders to stop...?

While I think you are trying to troll another member by asking him to list ... reasons that could have caused the riders to stop in the middle of the road, even though there was plenty of space available on the side, and to pin a larger part of the blame on the scooterists...

This is honestly a very bad disease of negligence...

...I agree with you about this bad disease of negligence that has crept into every city in India - whether it be pedestrians, riders or drivers, or any other activity.

I am not saying anybody deserved it but in my mind both the driver as well as the scooty riders are equally negligent and oblivious to vehicle conduct on the roads.

However, negligence is one aspect - the other being the boorish, heartless apathy to the well-being of others, which is well demonstrated by the car driver driving away after the crash, which, to my mind, is unforgivable.

The punishment should fit the crime, and the crime of the riders stopping in the middle of a road cannot be punished by their being run over, and a kangaroo court of Team-BHP members publicly declaring they deserved it. This will subsequently escalate into an utter violation of the absolutely necessary empathy towards human lives.

[green_ninja]

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

However, negligence is one aspect - the other being the boorish, heartless apathy to the well-being of others, which is well demonstrated by the car driver driving away after the crash, which, to my mind, is unforgivable.

The punishment should fit the crime, and the crime of the riders stopping in the middle of a road cannot be punished by their being run over, and a kangaroo court of Team-BHP members publicly declaring they deserved it. This will subsequently escalate into an utter violation of the absolutely necessary empathy towards human lives.

So according to you, the bikers were justified in blocking the road but the car driver does not have a justifiable reason to be driving fast? Let me try a different scenario...what if the car was an ambulance? Everyday I see such clowns on foot,motorbikes, cars, autos and every other contraption imaginable blocking the way of ambulances costing precious minutes.

BTW how do you know the car driver didn't just run away to save his own life from the gathering mob and surrender at the nearest police station or court?

Yes. The punishment should fit the crime. According to your logic the punishment for wantonly blocking the road should be a traffic fine but what is the quantum of punishment for a dead patient because someone decided to stop in the middle of the road for whatever reason (which is illegal BTW) and delays the ambulance by just a few minutes?

The consequences of breaking the law work in different ways for different folks. For the bikers it is bodily injury and for the car driver it is a lifetime of dealing with Indian courts and cases. But there are always consequences!

[venkyhere]

So much discussion has happened over "who is at fault" in the accident video of the dzire taxi (?) ramming into the two tripple-riding bikerists who had stopped in the middle of the road.

To people who say "the car driver is at fault for driving fast, no matter if people are stopped in the middle of the road, it's his prerogative to drive at a speed that provides sufficient reaction time to spot an obstacle and brake/avoid it" and hence the car is at fault :

I agree


To people who say "the bikers shouldn't have invited their fate by stopping in the middle of the road. This is india, people drive like maniacs, fast beyond the means of the congestions and unpredictabilities of a typical indian road, hence they should have been aware that something like a speeding and out of control vehicle can ram into them, especially whilst standing in the middle of the road. The prerogative to save their own lives is theirs" and hence the bikers are at fault :

I agree

In summary, both have to share the blame for this accident, but there is no point to the whole thing, especially in accidents involving 2 wheelers - the 2 wheeler guy stands to lose more, irrespective of whose fault caused the accident. Hence, it's upto 2 wheeler-ists to be extra careful without thinking "my right of way, I also pay taxes" etc when riding on the road, simply because they stand to lose more, they stand to lose their life very easily.

"Who is at fault" has no meaning if you are a two wheeler rider.

[ph03n!x]

Originally Posted by green_ninja

So according to you, the bikers were justified in blocking the road but the car driver does not have a justifiable reason to be driving fast? Let me try a different scenario...what if the car was an ambulance?
...
...

Is the car or ambulance justified in mowing down bikers who stopped in the middle of the road? How can two wrongs make it right? Is the punishment of stopping (irresponsibily) in the middle of the road, capital? Is it not a driver's responsibility - ambulance or otherwise - to avoid accidents?

We are not in a Roadrash game from yesteryears - this is what we have to train, drive and succeed at. There is no excuse for hitting something in front of you. Let's accept the responsibility and not hypothesize on what happened after.