[avira_tk]

Originally Posted by locusjag

the Endeavour waiting briefly..
The Endeavour should have been clearly visible to the Santro driver, assuming there was no curve blinding him. It is a low and flat median over which the hulking Endeavour should've been visible from a fair distance away. IMO he could've prevented this accident altogether.

The endeavour driver swung in and didn't wait, the rest of your post basically blamed the Santro for the accident. The hulking Endeavour means you can see further when you are driving it, decided to bully the small car anyway. Not surprising at all.

I guess your sympathy would have been with the Santro driver if he had something more expensive, like a Benz.

[locusjag]

Originally Posted by avira_tk

The endeavour driver swung in and didn't wait, the rest of your post basically blamed the Santro for the accident. Not surprising at all. I guess your sympathy would have been with the Santro driver if he had something more expensive, like a Benz.

Ouch! I'll ignore the vitriol in your reply and try to make my point instead.

When it comes to the question of women's safety, there's a school of thought which seeks to educate boys in the society and insists that even if women venture out in short clothes, the boys should conduct themselves properly.

I belong to the other school of thought - I'll teach my little girl that we cannot control or predict everything out there. Pragmatically, it works out best if we can avoid certain risks by choosing what we do instead, since that's 100% implementable - versus seeking to "educate" all the boys in the society, which is something anyone can try to do inevitably in vain until the cows come home.

And FYI - I've seen my share of rickety lorries and agricultural tractors doing the same thing that the Endy did on our highways; so it's not as if I have some sympathy for the Endy. And I've always been prepared to evade these bad drivers every single time that one of them has butted in across the median in this manner. If I'd ever put my family in harm's way by insisting that all the others out there should drive properly, I would never forgive myself.

[Rahul Rao]

Two years ago, I had a roll over in my VW Polo, and I was at a very low speed then.
The incident as it happened.

I was following a truck who was doing about 60 waiting for a chance to overtake,
the truck suddenly swerved and went over something (I later found it was a tail gate of a tempo ahead) which even I could not avoid.
I slowed further below 40 and decided to pass a RH curve coming up ahead, then stop and check the car for damages.
At that moment the car itself decided to take a sharp LH without any steering input (I later found that the link from steering rack to tie rod had snapped)
A moment later I was off the road, the engine stalled and the car overturned.

If something as low slung as a VW Polo can overturn, a vehicle with higher GC surely will, it doesn't take us rocket science to understand this.
What is important is the body structure doesn't collapse, and there is no intrusion from things on the road the car rolls over.
Note that a few years ago a Endeavour took multiple roll overs near Kolhapur and all occupants came out unscathed.

Rahul

[avira_tk]

Originally Posted by locusjag

Ouch! I'll ignore the vitriol in your reply and try to make my point instead.

When it comes to the question of women's safety, there's a school of thought...
time that one of them has butted in across the median in this manner. If I'd ever put my family in harm's way by insisting that all the others out there should drive properly, I would never forgive myself.

Likewise I'll ignore the fact that I'm your book, traffic accidents and sexual assault are in the same category.

This thread isn't about risk reduction, but about the responsibility of the drivers involved. The endeavour guy is better placed, he'll get his insurance, the Santro driver will have to settle out of court. Police can be real nasty if you try to go legal with the richer party. I'm sure you find nothing wrong with that, I don't feel that's right, we all have our different ways of looking at things.

[jas_mirage]

I don't see anything wrong the Santro guy has done here. It is a clear case of road bullying which the Endeavour tried doing, but failed miserably.

There are 2 parts to this, the Endeavour not indicating, nor showing any reason to turn until he turned. There was no indicators, and it was a rolling turn. He did not even stop.

The Santro was not even expecting the Endeavour to turn into their side. It may not have been a very high speed of impact, just the correct angle. On the lower bottom portion of the rear of vehicle with high ground clearance (Probably with an empty boot). Which is what caused it to flip.

It terms of responsibility, when it is your right of way, as a driver, with clear visibility, you do not expect someone to run into your way. especially the way the Endeavour did. Or maybe he stood on the brakes with all his might, which is why it hit the rear of the Endeavour instead on smack dab in the middle.

There is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY any of us can put even an iota of blame on the Santro driver. It all falls on the Endeavour.

[wheeledsoul]

My opinion:

The toppling of the Endeavor is caused partly by hard braking and partly by the sloped road (sloped down from the median). Notice at 0:25 Endeavor's rear right wheel raising immense dust and notice the swerved front right wheel (Endeavor driver tried to negate the change in direction of the vehicle upon impact). The driver panicked upon impact and hard braked, resulting in the vehicle "almost" coming to a halt and since the impact/collision with santro was still on (Santro was still in contact with Endeavor), the momentum of santro lifted Endeavor on the right wheels (as pivot). Imagine the same collision with the road sloped up towards the median, I believe the Endeavor wouldn't have toppled.

I believe The Endeavor guy is wrong here, either he didn't see the Santro coming or misjudged it's speed.

[Living2Drive]

except 4 way intersections and round about, i believe the one going straight as the first preference, again lot of road sense need to come to the picture considering the vehicle and its size and weight, a fully loaded truck even at 50 Km speed cannot stop less than 30, 40 meters, more over it will take its own sweet time to get back to its cruising speed. That is one reason why most of the truck drivers honk like mad if they find some one in their way. In this case i assume the santro driver would have either noticed late, or would have assumed the Endy would speedup and get off his way or worst case could have been an inexperienced driver. the Endy driver should ideally stop and then maneuvered the turn. or worst case he too could have been an inexperienced driver. i have seen Tempo traveller being toppled by Tata ace in the similar way. The tempo guy thought he had the way and took the turn with out stopping and slowed down to get down to the road shoulder which is about 5, 6 inches lower than the tarmac, the Tata Ace came exactly like the Santro loaded with water cans not much of speed (50ish), could not manage to stop and hit the tempo just after the rear wheel and landed on the road median, the tempo flipped and landed on its right side. if the tempo guy had stopped before turning the incident could have avoided my friend who was about to get down from the tempo 50 meters after the turn would not have lost the baby in her womb... The whole scene happened in front of my eyes while waiting to pick her up. Most of us are in hurry but very few of us are on time.

[srgntpepper]

Originally Posted by locusjag

I'll teach my little girl that we cannot control or predict everything out there. Pragmatically, it works out best if we can avoid certain risks by choosing what we do instead, since that's 100% implementable - versus seeking to "educate" all the boys in the society, which is something anyone can try to do inevitably in vain until the cows come home.

Totally off topic, but since you brought it up I feel it needs a counter. This is classic slut-shaming. The moment you assign even a fractional amount of guilt or responsibility to the victim, you are perpetuating and accepting that boys will be boys, and suvs will be suvs kind of entitled behaviour. It is not in vain. The more you stand up to it, the more aware people become. We need to teach our kids to be strong in face of entitled behaviour, not defer to it.

[locusjag]

Originally Posted by srgntpepper

Totally off topic, but since you brought it up I feel it needs a counter. This is classic slut-shaming. The moment you assign even a fractional amount of guilt or responsibility to the victim, you are perpetuating and accepting that boys will be boys, and suvs will be suvs kind of entitled behaviour.

It is not slut-shaming at all. It is pragmatism. Slut-shaming is if I were to chastize her for wearing short clothes, period. Pragmatism it is because i'd tell her that there is a time and place for everything. She can securely drive or get driven around to wherever she goes and her clothing won't matter. But if she were to take public transportation, then she should exercise her discretion for her own good because the world cannot be changed by our empty idealism.

The moment one has skin in the game (i.e., having a daughter in this case), one starts to think pragmatically and realistically about the issue at hand. Without skin in the game or without a proper thought process, one can wax eloquently till the cows come home like an idealist - "oh, the world needs to change", "they should conduct themselves properly"...yeah, tell me when those cows come home.

And I never rationalized it and said that SUVs will be SUVs either. Rather, it is wise to assume the worst when you spot any threat by the road, is what I said.

The more you stand up to it, the more aware people become

How? A gun in the purse maybe? If my girl whips out a gun, she'd best use it. And if she does so, everything will change forever for her.

We need to teach our kids to be strong in face of entitled behaviour, not defer to it.

Again...the wise choose their battles. Discretion is the better part of valour. Defensive driving is the best driving style for our country. Etc.

[srgntpepper]

Originally Posted by locusjag

The moment one has skin in the game (i.e., having a daughter in this case), one starts to think pragmatically and realistically about the issue at hand. Without skin in the game o.

Obviously we see differently. Its like that dress. we are looking at the same thing and you see it as white and me as blue. so there's no point in debating it.

For the record however, I do have a daughter, and I tell her to ignore what people think of her. And even if i didn't, my reaction wont be different for someone else's daughter. If she came home hurt because some person attacked her for wearing short clothes, I can't imagine telling her "you should have known better, you were asking for it."

[locusjag]

Originally Posted by srgntpepper

For the record however, I do have a daughter, I can't imagine telling her "you should have known better, you were asking for it."

One of the hallmarks of every militant "ism" out there (maoism, feminism, terrorism, communism..) is the self-serving creation of unspeakables. And then their proponents go on and make those unspeakables unspeakable. You've tried to shame me as some sort of male chauvinist just because I chose a different "ism" - pragmatism...

Anyways - I hope everyone assumes the worst on the road at all times. I don't know if the Santro driver had a clear field of vision or not. I assume he didn't slow down upon seeing the Endy. This is what most of us do on the road - we drive fast irrespective of all the threats by the side of the road. But we really need to assume the worst of every single movable object. In an ideal world, there won't be a single object by the freeway. In the US, troopers question you if you've stopped by the road on the breakdown lane..and nothing else is out there except neatly moving vehicles on earmarked lanes. There are no U turns. Over there, driving at 110 or 140 Kmph non-stop is feasible.

Why do we assume that we can do the same in India at all times? That is beyond me. I drive at 80 or 90 Kmph and at the first sign of a potential threat (a curve on the highway, a crowded bunch of vehicles moving together by my side, a cyclist by the side of the road, a cow eating the plants stupidly maintained by the NHAI on the medians, a vehicle waiting to cross the median...) i let go of the accelerator and wait for the situation to clear up. I may switch lanes well ahead of time. It doesn't matter that my speed may have dropped to a mere 60 Kmph meanwhile... I don't want to dwell on this too long. So there.

[drsk]

Originally Posted by Durango Dude

I think there must be a speed bump or barricade at such places where the vehicles are made to slow down and allow the Endy or any other car to turn safely.

I agree that Endy was at fault.

I do not agree that a speed breaker (or bump) or a barricade should be kept. They can cause different types of accidents.

If the intention is to slow down the vehicles, better ensure that no vehicle sold in India would cross "x" kmph speed ("x" could be 40 or 60). Perhaps I am exaggerating a little.

What we need is a better procedure for issuing driving license where every driver is educated on how to use the road.

One can't be trying to install foolproof mechanism for every fool. However, one can either ensure that the fool becomes knowledgeable by education or the fool is not given the opportunity to fool around.

[ashwinprakas]

There definitely are two ways off looking at it;

1. My View after being accustomed to the driving in India: The Endeavor is at fault as the Right of Passage was with the Santro, no further explanation needed on the same since we're all used to driving in India and it makes sense.

2. My Father's View after being accustomed to the driving in Kenya: The Santro is at fault because the Right of Passage is with the Endeavor since he is cutting lanes to cross over to the other side of the road, the ideology there being that if Right of Passage not be given to those drivers intending to cross roads it would simply slow down traffic, which again, makes sense.

[atlantis0965]

Hello

This thread has really become pretty divided as to proportioning the fault !

My view is that IF this does come down to being decided legally and not emotionally or logically the fault might actually end up more on the santro.

Simply for the fact that the law is simple about having control of your speed especially when approaching intersections/ U turn junctions in highways.

In fact i feel the reason for the metal barricades on the Bengaluru-Chennai highway was mainly because so many people were ignoring this ...

Sometimes i do not understand why people go on and on about the bigger vehicle or smaller vehicle. Wonder how this thread would have turned out had the santro had hit a motorbike or a bicycle or a tricycle instead of the endeavour.

The term " right of way" for " bigger " vehicles is being grossly violated by many of the the recent SUVs which have sprouted on our roads and also at the same time grossly misunderstood by the numerous other cars and not to forget the " 2 wheeler" which try either outdo the former simply because of lack of driving sense/knowledge or ignorance of the consequences or dare i call it a complex ?
This was an accident and like most others in India will probably just fizzle away and hopefully the parties involved having thankfully survived would have learnt their lessons.
Let us too on this forum look at it from both perspectives and just imbibe our own; based on the type of vehicle we drive whilst still not forgetting the basic fact of having to drive SAFE ourselves .

[SCORPION]

I think we are losing the plot here.

The actual reason for this thread, the title which now has been mellowed down from the initial 'breaking news' style title, is to discuss how a small hatch back easily toppled an SUV more than twice it's weight. Otherwise, it is nothing more than a typical Indian accident caused by 2 morons behind their respective wheels and does not deserve a separate thread and endless discussions on who is to blame for the accident.