[zulfi hansi]

Its very unfortunate to see such loss of life no matter how and why an accident takes place, the only questions that remain to be answered IMHO are;

1. Did the systems of the car malfunction? - this can be found out easily id MB conducts a technical inquiry into this case.

2. Is the court criminally prosecuting the truck driver for negligence amounting to loss of life [which is equivalent to attempt to kill provisions in the law]? - If not, why not?

3. Is the court criminally prosecuting the officials of MB for again the same grounds of negligence resulting in loss of life [now police should file a charge-sheet in this case once they get a unbiased technical report of the malfunctioning of the car overall]. The court will be dependent on such report / charge-sheet etc.

4. What should be the financial claim against the insurance company/MB/Owner of the truck or his insurance company etc.

These are the questions of importance at this moment.
IMO I would impose exemplary damages against MB if the car has malfunctioned and not much less damages to be recovered from the driver / owner of the truck.

We all know that the one who is lost will never come back, but redemption for our souls is what we need, and also make sure we do not let anymore to be lost like this in future for such reasons.

[Enigmatic]

R.I.P Nirmal and my hearty condolences to your family .

After having looked at all the pics , it is evident that the front right side bumper did not have much of an impact . Which means only one thing , when the car hit the truck which was turning right , the car went under the truck and the impact was on the right A pillar as a result of which the A pillar is carved back .
Also the truck must have been of considerable height . Because if it was one of the smaller trucks , the front bumper , bonnet etc would have taken the brunt of the impact and not the A pillar which seems to have hit the truck at a considerable height .

However the car did not get stuck there and the impact of the collision between the A pillar and the truck , set it out of control and it went on to hit the shops on the other side.

But still i dont find this reason convincing enough for the airbags to not deploy . Also it seems from the pics of punjabiportal.com that the side curtain airbags did inflate , but i dont think they would have been of much help as this was not a sideways collision and moreover the whole right side roof which holds the airbags has shredded apart .

No matter what and where the sensors were placed, they should have done their job in such a situation an you might never know , it could have saved Nirmals life.

Mercedes should do a through investigation of the same if they honor their commitment to the safety of the people who buy their cars.

P.S. If this is what happened to one of the most well built , robust , safest cars on the planet . Guess what the impact would have done to a Korean hatchback ?

[999]

Heartfelt condolences Mark. May peace prevail upon you and your family.
Guys/Girls, Why is it so difficult to understand the crash position? For me it is clear,
1. The Merc on the leftlane, truck on the right moving ahead. (Speeds are debatable and questionable. For me immeterial in this case if more than 60 or 80).
2. Truck decides for a hard left(coffee, phone call to me made from kiosks?)
3. Merc see the trouble and take a hard right turn very late. here again the speed comes into play.
4. The driver side of the car goes under the truck at an angle, tearing off the A pillar and the body top, jumps over the divider and lands on the other side of the road. If you see the picture the roof is ripped at an angle not horizontal which would have been if it was a direct ducking under the truck.

Now on the question of airbags inflating, it would have even inflated and then cut apart by the A pillar or even tore apart. Remember the forces acting are the direction of the truck (towards the left) and the car towards the right so for me it is a shear than a compression.

[Fauji]

Hi Markmytravel,

This is jus shocking and my condolences to the family. Pls pursue the case and ensure justice is done.

BTW, guys, this behavour of truck drivers on the highway is a perennilal problem. When I went to Chitradurga two weeks back I counted five such incidents of drivers suddenly changing lanes or turning. How do we deal such situation when you are driving at 130 on highways?

[999]

Originally Posted by Fauji

Hi Markmytravel,

This is jus shocking and my condolences to the family. Pls pursue the case and ensure justice is done.

BTW, guys, this behavour of truck drivers on the highway is a perennilal problem. When I went to Chitradurga two weeks back I counted five such incidents of drivers suddenly changing lanes or turning. How do we deal such situation when you are driving at 130 on highways?

Nothing much we can do if we are 130. But shouldn't be at 130 in the first place

[vina]

Originally Posted by 999

...
Guys/Girls, Why is it so difficult to understand the crash position? For me it is clear,
1. The Merc on the leftlane, truck on the right moving ahead. (Speeds are debatable and questionable. For me immeterial in this case if more than 60 or 80).
2. Truck decides for a hard left(coffee, phone call to me made from kiosks?)
3. Merc see the trouble and take a hard right turn very late. here again the speed comes into play.
4. The driver side of the car goes under the truck at an angle, tearing off the A pillar and the body top, jumps over the divider and lands on the other side of the road. If you see the picture the roof is ripped at an angle not horizontal which would have been if it was a direct ducking under the truck.
...

Till point #3 I can see what is going on. Point #4 - first of all the OP claims the car never went under the turck. Second even if it did, what was the position of the car (relative to the truck) at the time of contact?

No matter what angle you chose if the car was moving from left to right, the car's left (i.e. the passenger side) had to hit the truck if the right (i.e. the driver's side) hit at all. Now the OP claims that's not the way it happened - the passenger side never hit the truck.. Hence the confusion.

Originally Posted by Fauji

...

BTW, guys, this behavour of truck drivers on the highway is a perennilal problem. When I went to Chitradurga two weeks back I counted five such incidents of drivers suddenly changing lanes or turning. How do we deal such situation when you are driving at 130 on highways?

Let me ask a different question - when you have to change lanes, how do you deal with idiot driver who think it is their right o drive at 130?

[pgsagar]

If the airbags had inflated they could have probably saved his life. But then again, there is only so much technology can do. There is a limit to what all the active and passive safety systems in the world can do. I have seen some people in AP drive such big cars under misconceived notion that they are driving world's safest car and nothing would happen to them. There are limits to how safe a car can be. One can't take a car and ram into a big truck/bus and expect the safety system to save life. Laws of physics cannot be ignored.

[suhaas307]

Originally Posted by vina

Till point #3 I can see what is going on. Point #4 - first of all the OP claims the car never went under the turck. Second even if it did, what was the position of the car (relative to the truck) at the time of contact?

No matter what angle you chose if the car was moving from left to right, the car's left (i.e. the passenger side) had to hit the truck if the right (i.e. the driver's side) hit at all. Now the OP claims that's not the way it happened - the passenger side never hit the truck.. Hence the confusion.

The problem here is, the details of the accident are very sketchy. It's not accurate or not even close to being accurate. And when the actual details are omitted, one would start to analyse the situation in whichever way is convenient.

- How fast was the Mercedes being driven?

- How fast was the truck being driven?

- Was the car trying to overtake it from the left?

- Did the truck driver attempt a lane-changing maneuver?

None of these questions have answers. SO without these answers, how can we arrive at conclusions?

I'd like to raise another point here.

I've done my fair share of highway driving in my 5 years of experience behind the wheel, and there are many truck drivers who are quite irresponsible on highways across the country. However, there are some who are quite nice and understand that they are always slower when compared to other vehicles.

Now, there have been instances where truck drivers don't hear the honks and don't see flashing lights, and even if they do, most of them are too drunk to realize and react quickly, so they take their time switching lanes.

I've noticed several instances where cars try and get ahead of these hulking trucks by honking and flashing behind them, and even before the truck driver reacts to them, these cars swerve to the left lane and attempt to overtake them from the left, due to the lack of patience, and without adequate warning.

One could add that to the list of possibilities.

Originally Posted by vina

Let me ask a different question - when you have to change lanes, how do you deal with idiot driver who think it is their right o drive at 130?

Nail. On. Head.

[999]

Originally Posted by vina

Till point #3 I can see what is going on. Point #4 - first of all the OP claims the car never went under the turck. Second even if it did, what was the position of the car (relative to the truck) at the time of contact?

Originally Posted by suhaas307

The problem here is, the details of the accident are very sketchy. It's not accurate or not even close to being accurate. And when the actual details are omitted, one would start to analyse the situation in whichever way is convenient.

My take on the accident. The OP said the hit was on the driver side. I think he meant the driver side of the Merc. Assuming the red square as the truck in the very crude diagram I made, I would expect similar damages seen in the Car. The next move for the Merc will be a hard turn right, which I think he did. (remember OP said he braked hard and turned.)

[CADAVER]

Our deepest condolences

As per Mercedes India website S-class has window / side Airbags

Foreign car companies always take us for granted

Ravi

[k_nitin_r]

Without any disrespect to the driver of the vehicle, I would like to state that having the airbags of a vehicle deploy unnecessarily is a greater risk than having an airbag that did not inflate because the airbag can send debris and glass flying into the passengers. Had the airbag deployed, it may have increased the force with which the rod hit the driver.

Safety tests do not test for cases when a vehicle goes underneath a truck or a trailer but rather they test for impact that hits the vehicle from roughly the level of the door handle. If a tree were to smash through the wind shield and impale an occupant of the vehicle, none of the safety features of the vehicle would help in any way except for perhaps the burglar alarm, which can serve to attract attention.

A larger vehicle, such as a SUV, would definitely have been safer because the accident would have occurred at the level of the door handles rather than at the windshield level so the vehicle body would have been able to take more of the impact.

[SiddVish]

Just went through the owners manual of our innova and it says the front airbag won't deploy in case of an impact without rapid deceleration because the driver might still need to steer the vehicle or the vehicle might be heading towards a second more severe collision ( after being sideswiped ? ). The airbags will however deploy and rapidly deflate in case of rapid deceleration beyond a set threshold without an impact being detected.

This goes to prove that there is no way a computer can ever be trained to anticipate all real world scenarios, however hard the engineers may try.

R.I.P

[RGK]

Originally Posted by CADAVER

Foreign car companies always take us for granted
Ravi

Deepest condolences. Very sad to hear.

Absolutely Ravi. It is 100% true with all type of foreign companies not only in Auto.

So called 4 lane highways are better roads than the old 2 lane highways and not at all designed for high speeds. These highways help drivers to avoid negotiation with opposite traffic. That's all.

[BLACK1]

i live in jaipur and i know how much stir it has created. But there are certain facts which were revealed in the newspaper that the car in question was recently damaged in an accident and was repaired at delhi at a cost of around 7 lac, and it was also stated that all the airbags had deployed in that accident so it can also be a case of shoddy repair. Anyways the co. Cannot be forgiven for such a thing.

[Hammer & Anvil]

The sensors to deploy the airbags are usually behind crumple ones under the front bumper/fender. The side deployment fuses/switches are in the door or the B and C pillars.
In this case, the car crashing into the stalls deployed the airbag on the other side. I do not forsee the MBenz people coming to be at fault in this case, and the car can do whatever it can, provided it fails in the manner it is thought to fail. If you have a rod come flying thru the windshield, nothing in the car or a tank can save your life.
In my opinion, sad as the case may be, MB will not be found at fault. Secondly, one has tobe extremely careful that the MB Forensics team will get to the computer of the vehicle and find the speed at which the airbag deployed, and then if it is found that the car was above the speed limit for that road, you will have a problem, and then this article/thread on the Forum can also be called in for defamation.
To recap:
Switches that deploy air bags work when 'crushed' and not when tapped. So in this case if the S Class slid under a struck/or got side swiped, the sensors wouldnt have deployed.

KD