[1self]

A car is just a shell, with space inside for the occupants. After regulations came out to build crumple zones into the bodywork, modern cars have become safe at low to moderate speeds. At high speeds these cars are FAR worse off than older cars. You will not find the kind TEAR in a ladder frame chassis of Jeeps, Fiats & Ambassadors. Of course these cars also could not attain these speeds as easily as modern cars do.

As previously mentioned, one cannot escape the laws of physics, no matter what the technology.

[Thad E Ginathom]

It does not matter what you drive, you can still kill yourself with the help of a single tree.

[ridersam]

Originally Posted by sourabhzen

In a 3 lane road we occupy 2/3rd of the road irrespective of the lane we are in. Expecting all to use right most lane to over take is a sensible and logical thing IMO.

I agree we should not grumble if other traffic is using left lane to overtake but the overtaking vehicle should give sufficient warning before doing that.

If one were to drive in the left most (driving) lane, it would occupy less (1/3) of the road and leave more for faster moving (overtaking) traffic. It also adds to the safety factor if overtaking is done from the right, as we are supposed to. But again, dreaming of utopia...

[Travelling_Monk]

Originally Posted by trinity0114

Some more pics of the BMW accident in ludhiana. As per the local police the car was being driven at speeds of 200 kmph when the driver lost control of the car & it hit a roadside tree & ended up into pieces. The car in question is said to be a BMW 320i.

The local guy who spotted this might be having a speed gun with him at that point of time, if he was to accurately judge the speed of that car. I am still confused as to how people are ready to believe the words of a random 'local guy', claiming to have seen the whole incident with supernatural ability to judge speeds of moving vehicles. Maybe the driver was shouting 200! 200!, with his windows down before the accident took place . Whatever it is, the road which I see in these pictures isn't a 200kph friendly road and anything over 100-120 on this road is suicidal. I don't know, when will people have a sense of responsibility, buying a BMW isn't going to help you.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by Travelling_Monk

The local guy who spotted this might be having a speed gun with him at that point of time, if he was to accurately judge the speed of that car. I am still confused as to how people are ready to believe the words of a random 'local guy', claiming to have seen the whole incident with supernatural ability to judge speeds of moving vehicles. Maybe the driver was shouting 200! 200!, with his windows down before the accident took place ...

Got to admit that that is certainly true. I would not like to put a number on the speed of a moving vehicle, but when there is an accident, and when there are media people to talk to, there is always someone who thinks they can. Yes, we should take the number with a pinch of salt.

Still, one does not do that much damage to a car at ordinary speeds, even though a tree, assuming it is strong enough to stand, represents a fairly sharp "edge" in a collision. Which is why they (and lamp posts) do so much damage, even at moderate speeds.

[silversteed]

Originally Posted by Travelling_Monk

The local guy who spotted this might be having a speed gun with him at that point of time, if he was to accurately judge the speed of that car. I am still confused as to how people are ready to believe the words of a random 'local guy', claiming to have seen the whole incident with supernatural ability to judge speeds of moving vehicles. Maybe the driver was shouting 200! 200!, with his windows down before the accident took place . ...

Please take a look at what I'd posted earlier, in this very same thread:

Originally Posted by silversteed

Baffles me every time I read such pieces of news - a witness who was one among these:
a) a passer-by on foot
b) travelling in a bus
c) somebody living closeby
d) someone that reached the spot/called the ambulance or cops
e) someone who managed to catch a glimpse of the speedo in the crashed car, often with the needle resting on the max marking (120+ in most cars)

can accurately tell you the speed at which the vehicle that met with an accident was travelling.

It's high time the media show some restraint on publishing figures like these.

I am not at all justifying speeding or driving rash. But, in cases where someone who was driving neat and within the limits gets hit by some moron driving in the wrong lane, or some bigshot's car jumps a signal and gets hit by a mangoman's vehicle that had the green, the media always rushes to a conclusion that the "rogue" vehicle (which one it is, is anyone's guess) was being driven at over 100kmph, 120kmph, 140kmph etc, based on the vehicle.

[arjithin]

Originally Posted by pisthpeeps

This is what an idiot driving Innova did to me in a 6 lane highway yesterday night while i was driving with my wife and two kids. I was on the middle lane doing 80 and this Innova came behind and started flashing headlights. The lanes on my left and right was empty and no other vehicles in vicinity. I thought he would take the right or left lane and hence i stuck to my lane. There he comes and hits me around my cars left front wheel and merrily goes without stopping. Luckily the hit was not very severe otherwise we would have lost control and may even have jumped the median. I gave a chase and caught him after 2 kms. I flashed my lights and honked but he did not stop. This chasing continued for 2 kms after which it started raining and i thought its not wise to chase him with my family in car and the time being past 9:30pm. We have noted his number. He took a left and vanished. At one point i was driving parallel with him honking and shouting to stop. The driver did not even turn. There was a passenger in the last row and he didnt even bother to look back while i flashed my lights. Now i need to spend from my pocket for no mistake of mine. Any use in complaining in any Chennai traffic police site? What would be the approximate cost to fix the damage in a body shop?
Attachment 1301907

Originally Posted by sudev

Question for pisthpeeps : If you were on a highway middle lane, there was no other traffic, he over took you from left and came back to middle lane rather abruptly. Why did you not take evasive action? Swerved to right lane? Granted he was an idiot but...

Few more questions. I am somehow not able to digest that the accident with such damage still kept you on course even though you were doing 80kmph.

Did Innova's front hit you or back ?

case 1 - Innova's front. Innova doing say 100 kmph, overtakes you from left, turns right; but you are not really seeing him turning right and its front right corner hits you.
Such a hit below A pillar (judging from the image) should push you straight into right most lane. Again, looking at the picture, both vehicle were in contact for 32-40 inches. Since Innova hit from behind I expect the scratches to run from back to front, but the marks in your car run front to back.

Case 2 - Innova cut you from left lane and its right rear hit you. This is highly unlikely as the scratches run all the way from A pillar. Such a case will introduce more scratches on the front bumper (left) area.

Case 3 - Innova cuts you from left or comes to your lane after crossing your car, somehow slows down or comes too close and you hit the right rear of Innova with your front left. The marks indicate that your car was at higher speed compared to the other car.

Please provide a more detailed description of how this accident happened.

[PGA]

Originally Posted by Travelling_Monk

The local guy who spotted this might be having a speed gun with him at that point of time, if he was to accurately judge the speed of that car. Whatever it is, the road which I see in these pictures isn't a 200kph friendly road and anything over 100-120 on this road is suicidal. I don't know, when will people have a sense of responsibility, buying a BMW isn't going to help you.

The car impacted the tree at 120 kmph, the speedo was found struck at 120kmph.

Iam attaching a link of the newspaper containing a photo of speedo.

http://epaper.tribuneindia.com/36301..._2014#page/1/2

[trinity0114]

Originally Posted by Travelling_Monk

The local guy who spotted this might be having a speed gun with him at that point of time, if he was to accurately judge the speed of that car. I am still confused as to how people are ready to believe the words of a random 'local guy', claiming to have seen the whole incident with supernatural ability to judge speeds of moving vehicles. Maybe the driver was shouting 200! 200!, with his windows down before the accident took place . Whatever it is, the road which I see in these pictures isn't a 200kph friendly road and anything over 100-120 on this road is suicidal. I don't know, when will people have a sense of responsibility, buying a BMW isn't going to help you.

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Got to admit that that is certainly true. I would not like to put a number on the speed of a moving vehicle, but when there is an accident, and when there are media people to talk to, there is always someone who thinks they can. Yes, we should take the number with a pinch of salt.

Still, one does not do that much damage to a car at ordinary speeds, even though a tree, assuming it is strong enough to stand, represents a fairly sharp "edge" in a collision. Which is why they (and lamp posts) do so much damage, even at moderate speeds.

Agree with the logic completely, no one can practically tell what speed that car was doing & that was the reason I wrote "as per the local police" in my post. But for a car to break into 2 pieces, the speed would be insane for sure.

[drmohitg]

Also in all due probability if the speedo was found stuck at 120 kmph then they must be surely doing speeds in excess of it since there must be some loss of speed either due to driver panic braking or the increased resistance provided by gravel just before the tree. Anyhow to break the car like that there must be a significant force. A very very significant force. More so since the BMW and the likes undergo so much crash testing before launching.

[venkyhere]

A tree has a blunt, curved/rounded surface (unlike an electric/telephone post which mostly have a rectangular cross section and thus sharp edges). The side-face of a car is really flat. Now if these two surfaces have to be involved in a collision, there is bound to be some "flex" - little bit of movement for the tree (like how a flagpole flexes when there is a strong wind hitting the flag) , and more flexing on the body of the car.

1) For moderate speeds, after the intial flex, the car is supposed to "bounce off" the tree and the door/B-pillar will be bent heavily.
2) for high speeds, the momentum will be so high that the side that suffers impact will wrap itself around the tree, and the opposite side roof rail and bottom rail tearing off into two pieces.
3) Only for insane speeds, can the blunt surfaces act like cardboard on knife and "slice" like this - that too, though the B-pillar

My guess :
There is bound to be a sharp curve in the road around the area of the accident. I seriously think the car was doing much more than 200kph, the dude driving wanted to show off how well the BMdubloo grips the road, and demonstrate that his twin jewels are made of steel, by really taking it to the limits. The car slips, is flung like a frisbee towards the tree, panic breaking with ABS assist would have brought down the forward component of the velocity to 120kph at the time of impact; however, the sideways component of the velocity at the time of impact would have remained same as at the time of slipping. This could have led to 3) above.

[Sheel]

I do not know what are you guys discussing about? Had the driver been alert and responsible, this incident would not have happened. As in this case, no one else is to be blamed, but the driver of that particular BMW.

[msdivy]

Originally Posted by RavSam

Man! Looking at this makes me want to buy a Volvo with a roll-cage wearing a helmet and a biker suit.

Well you might need one, in case you want to try the stunt of that particular BMW driver. Otherwise, you don't need it.

Originally Posted by StepUP!

This is shit scary! BMW? I want to see that tree which sliced a BMW into three pieces.

Any normal tree will do. Probably you wouldn't believe the damage on tree. Few pages back they was Honda City which wrapped around a tree at high speed. Tree had just few layers of bark peeled off. Read in this forum (could be somebody's signature): Between car & a tree, tree wins every time.

[sourabhzen]

Originally Posted by ridersam

If one were to drive in the left most (driving) lane, it would occupy less (1/3) of the road and leave more for faster moving (overtaking) traffic. It also adds to the safety factor if overtaking is done from the right, as we are supposed to. But again, dreaming of utopia...

I stand corrected. We occupy 1/3rd of a 3 lane road irrespective of the lane we are driving in. Left most lane is for slow moving traffic like trucks and other heavy vehicles.

[meetbadri]

Originally Posted by sourabhzen

I stand corrected. We occupy 1/3rd of a 3 lane road irrespective of the lane we are driving in. Left most lane is for slow moving traffic like trucks and other heavy vehicles.

It is true that lane discipline law is in place even in India. But the thing is most the truck drivers, rickshaw drivers and cab drivers are illiterates who are not aware of almost all basic things which has to be maintained on the roads. Also worst part comes from the Traffic police, even they are least bothered or are not aware of the laws which are in place.