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-   -   Massive Polo GTI accident in Hyderabad - Falls off a flyover! (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/road-safety/215936-massive-polo-gti-accident-hyderabad-falls-off-flyover-10.html)

I am not a road design or safety expert but clearly driver seems to be giving 2 hoots about rules. Even if fly over design is faulty, Authorities have clearly marked it as a 40 KM zone. Had the guy been following that, he could have saved himself from being a missile and a life could have been saved.

Such road designs are not uncommon in space constrained cities and come what may, his speeds are neither justified nor expected. He should be tried for murder and convicted for whole his natural life. Perhaps, fly over design angle is being bought in to save the guy from murder charges and save some sentence.

It’s seriously disheartening to see this. My heart goes out to the family of the person who was hit by this.

I’d blame the design of the barricade (whatever it’s called) to be like that of a support that takes a fast vehicle airborne. The design of the cement structure should’ve been elevated and straight so that even if there was any impact at high / low speed, vehicle wouldn’t have slipped out of the flyover and sent airborne.

Driver was speeding excessively mostly and didn’t expect the turn to be a bit steep and couldn’t control the car.

Hopefully authorities should elevate the structure a bit for the sidewall and avoid such incidents from happening in future anywhere.

Considering all the talk about flyover design, I mean the guy was in the wrong so yeah whatever happens to him, happens, and I do definitely at the end of the day pray that the victims walk away better.

I am always down for better roads. I remember when I first learnt how expensive it was to construct roads and flyovers and highways, I was shocked that there were what seemed to be so many critical flaws in the way that they were designed or executed in most such ventures in our country. I mean several hundreds and sometimes thousands of crores go into these projects and what they can't even plan it well enough that there doesn't end up being a break in the divider allowing oncoming traffic to cut across right after a blind right-hand bend in the highway? Or they can't even execute it properly enough that there aren't hilariously uneven undulations? :Frustrati God people complain about how expensive iPhones and BMWs are just see the amount of money going into our road construction projects and the way they are so shabbily executed more often than not, leaves me really disheartened.

Anyone else notice the car's rear wheels lift up at the 36 second mark in the video? https://youtu.be/CilMkRisV48?t=34
Play it back at .25 speed it seems like perhaps either the car bounced on a really bad undulation or he slammed the brakes so hard that the nose dove down so quick indicating the driver probably did not know that there was a bend in the flyover and was expecting to travel straight ahead. I suppose close examination ought to reveal the biggest culprit. If the car bounced then it has to be the flyover's poor construction. If the car is discovered to have braked really hard at that moment where the rear wheel is seen in the air, then it is the drivers fault.

You seem to be forgetting the clocked 104kmph. Nobody can blame the flyover for that.

Maybe we should ask how many thousands of cars have taken this route and not flown over the wall? Several contributors to this thread are regulars.

Very sad indeed for the woman who lost her life. Excuse me for being insensitive but absolutely no sympathy for the driver of the car.

I was recently driving over a very narrow flyover and my wife, who doesn't drive, said ”slow down you'll hit the curb". To which I said only people who don't drive feel that way. I went on to lecture her how drivers anticipate the bend by looking at the bending lane indicators and how fast both edges of the road meet in the horizon. Looking at the footage, I stand corrected! That idiot was driving like there was no bend ahead!

Also in my experience people and admistration tend to learn the hard way about the risks associated with the freedom of speed a new flyover provides. I remember quite a few horrific accidents had happened on the Eastern Freeway in Mumbai soon after it was opened. Now with speed cameras and a 60 kmph speed limit, things are much better.

Instead of extensive rumble strips, if authorities can install the damaged car at the beginning/approach of the flyover - such that it is visible from all lanes- it becomes a grim reminder and serves to slow down hyper excited folks.

One thing that detracts people from speeding is the knowledge that there are speed cameras on the flyover. In Mumbai, the JJ flyover and Eastern freeway are two examples where everyone sticks to the speed limit which is a paltry 60-80. I however think Mumbai people are not used to driving at high speeds and anything above 80 makes them uncomfortable anyways.

However, I had witnessed a really bad accident on JJ flyover because of similar morons on a Activa. They were going from Byculla towards CST and saw the cops at the end of the flyover. They turned around and were driving on the wrong-side when a Mercedes banged them bad. So bad that the front left wheel of Mercedes came out and apparently one of the guys flew and hit a street light! I assume the Mercedes was speeding also!

This accident only goes to prove even walking on the road can kill you. It all goes back to strict enforcement of traffic rules. In my office building i see morons driving at 40 - 50 kmph, inside the building - the 300m stretch from the parking lot to the gate. We as a race only listen to penalty and punishment, never to reason.

Precisely the point. While we have now become overnight experts in infrastructure design and project execution, we must also keep in mind the fact that many a times the roads, bridges, overpasses are designed and constructed under severe constraints. Its easy for us armchair experts to say that why wasn't the right hander straightened, but we don't know what litigation must have been there while trying to acquire the land. It's easy for us to say that why there is a break in the divider on a 4 lane expressway right on the blind turn and raise doubts about the quantity of the grey matter inside the design engineer's head, but we forget the agitation that the locals had done because of the divider as it would have meant they'd have to travel 300 meters more for the crossing. I'll just share a classic case here. The EW corridor passes over a railway crossing about 85 kms from Guwahati and when the diversion cum overpass was being constructed for non stop flow of highway traffic, there were huge agitations with local politicians and organisations holding dharna and all. Know the cause of their discomfort? There are roadside sellers who sell tender coconuts to the vehicles forced to stop at the railway crossing, and if the pass is constructed they will lose the livelihood. :Frustrati So now the sellers are on the 4 Lane expressway selling coconuts and as usual we morons stop abruptly to buy the healthy drink and in the process endanger everyone. And as bonus you also have the option of getting a carelessly discarded coconut out of a moving bus onto your vehicle while you are busy overtaking it. (I was once witness to it, thankfully I was 2-3 cars behind and didn't get lucky).

Point I'm trying to make here is that in lots of places you can't make the textbook perfect infrastructure here in India due to various external factors and not because the designers and engineers lack basic qualities. At least for our generation and may be next, such factors will be at work and we'll keep getting the nasty surprises on the roads and bridges. Till that time, we, the road users must be responsible and exercise caution, rather than putting our faith in the road saving us.

Here in this case again, we are trying to find out the ramp approach angle, caster, camber, alignment, grade of the concrete whether OPC, PPC or some other cocktail, but all the while forgetting that had this moron been just doing a sensible speed, even if not 40 kmph, an innocent life would not have been lost.

The moot point of this elaborate rant is that to survive and not kill others on the road, the primary elements required are common sense and responsible behaviour rather than world class infrastructure. Else there'd not have been any accidents in the developed world.

BTW, nowhere in the world one will get away by doing 104 kmph on a city road crossing, no matter what. Either fate will have you or law enforcement will catch you. Sooner rather than later.

I walk to my office for around 2 kms and part of this walk is on a small sidewalk next to the ramp on the ORR and my recurring nightmare scenario is a car like the one in Hyderabad falling from the sky and the other one is by a errant driver driving at 60 KMPH on a service road when its empty and getting distracted. Its the peril of not driving to office and be a walking duck for these drivers who dont care for any rules :deadhorse

Speed works only for those who respect it, if one uses speed like drugs (dopamine is produced during the thrill of speed) then they are merely an addict of that hit of dopamine during thrilling drives (close shaves, high speed turns, basically everything deemed illegal by road regulations).

This accident happened in broad daylight, one can see the video very clearly that the borders are painted in the most noticeable contrasting colours of black and yellow as well. The flyover itself is quite wide.. in short the driver can be nailed to this crime, cold. The way he approches the turn, changes lanes, turns and then hits the barricade points to horrendous driving skills and nothing else. Blaming the authorities at this point would be like a burglar blaming the house owner that the reason he got in was due to the poor construction and security of the house.

Also I pray that roads and flyovers never improve in this nation, if they do, Swiggy and Zomato riders will go at 150 mph nonstop and the speed addicts will kill many thousands going at 200+ kmph and then say "Americans and Europeans do it". America and Europe do not have 1.3 billion people combined, on top of that animals (which should be respected as much) and weird road designs like here in India. We are 3rd world, we should act like it.

https://m.timesofindia.com/city/hyde...jf2TDprB1yR6iw


So they might increase the height of the crash barrier. No mentions of adding speed breakers or rumble strips.

Well my friend, it is as good as hoping that displaying a bloody dead throat, or a tar filled lungs would dampen cigarette sales. If only lessons could be so easily taken. Cost of a cigarette has only gone up from 2 to 15 bucks, yet it sells more today.

We are talking so much because we are truly saddened and angered to see what just happened. But it has happened before, it happened today and it will happen again. May be next one when a mad biker without side view mirrors, riding in the middle of the flyover takes a sudden right at the same curve resulting in a fellow car driver to brake, skid and rollover again ? Not sure what we will blame then :deadhorse

There is battle out there on our roads; does not matter what the road conditions are. And we got a million miles to improve, when it comes to driving sense, and to honor rules.

So many things need to change along with road design, or conditions. But end of the day, I guess only one thing could possibly lead to less number of vehicles on our roads, reduced traffic, less accidents, reduced pollution and finally some sort of relief; That would be "highly available, well connected, affordable, state of the art PUBLIC TRANSPORT".

this is what is called the real-world scenario. And while you might have a point about the road construction, but that by no means can justify a car flying off the flyover, and falling down and killing one innocent bystander.

I mean this 'flaw' isn't akin to the Tacoma Narrows, where the engineering flaw was so bad that it led to destruction.

While I haven't seen the flyover, but it seems to have the correct 'attention points', the bright yellow and black stripes. The loud 'right ahead' signs, the white zebra stripes on the road.

It clearly is the driver's fault. If he was assuming to have been going straight, he wouldn't have taken an initial right it was his over-speeding that veered him towards the left of the flyover and eventually pushed the car OVER the curb and down below.

Could the bridge have been made safer, maybe!
Should the driver have been driver carefully, definitely!

If that moronic driver had observed the road signs carefully, he would not have landed below the flyover killing the unfortunate pedestrian. Moreover he should have known the fact clearly that he was driving in city and not on a highway.
If you see the video clip, all other vehicles were being driven sedately. What prompted this driver to zoom past 100 + . Only he can answer.