Team-BHP - Massive Polo GTI accident in Hyderabad

I heard the universal solution all over India is being added to "prevent" these accidents on this particular flyover now. More rumbler strips. :Frustrati

The way I saw this accident -

The chain of events started at the existing rumbler strip.
The fellow hit the rumblers at unspeakable speeds.
Car lost traction (it always does on them at high speeds)
He saw the turn & entered panic braking
Hit an expansion joint
Lost more traction - Its evident that the rear wheels lifted and car lost traction under breaking after the expansion joint before turn.
After that he was just a passenger

Rumblers aren't the solution. Banked curves & sensible turns on flyovers are.

Quote:

Originally Posted by swissknife (Post 4700824)

I don't see why roads should be designed for such people who shouldn't be driving in the first place. It would help identify such and permanently prevent them from driving. Oh yes, Utopia, come over.

The roads must be designed with exactly these morons in mind. Why? Because morons are inevitable. The design should ensure that innocents are saved when morons make mistakes. The moron being saved is a byproduct.
Had the banking on this flyover been better & traction better - the extremely unlucky lady standing on the road underneath would have been alive today.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guna (Post 4700856)

I thought the car partially fell on a tree first before hitting the road? If it had fallen off directly on the road, the damage would have been worse.

This is possible and may explain why it landed on its rear end.

Quote:

Originally Posted by opendro (Post 4700861)

I'm not denying that this driver went totally out of control, beyond his abilities and beyond the rules. All I'm saying is that the flyover design seem poor and can put someone unfamiliar with it into a big surprise.

Agreed! Lets assume that we have a runaway car \ unconscious driver with foot on the A- pedal, a better side wall on the flyover (how ironic) would have prevented the vehicle from leaving the road surface.

OK OK OK OK OK...

So there is, maybe, another mistake for which we can blame the driver.

Expecting good road design.

Seriousy. Yes, things can and should be improved, but what today do people expect? What do enthusiast T-BHPers expect? What should the owner of a rare, relatively expensive, much-more-than-a-hatchback expect?

Do we forget where we are? Do we forget what our roads were like yesterday? Guess what: they are the same today.

sorry for the rant.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom (Post 4701229)

...

Seriousy. Yes, things can and should be improved, but what today do people expect? What do enthusiast T-BHPers expect? What should the owner of a rare, relatively expensive, much-more-than-a-hatchback expect?.

Do we forget where we are? Do we forget what our roads were like yesterday? Guess what: they are the same today.

I drive a relatively warm hatch, and I live in Bangalore, so I can empathize with the frustration.

I do my bit of railing against the quality of urban roads where I drive (privately and with the authorities), and I feel justifiably entitled to do so after paying hard-earned money for the most expensive road tax state in the country, but I also swallow my frustration and drive to the limitations of where I am, both to protect my car and my own skin. Ultimately, I guess I like living more than I like driving quick.

What I feel is unjustified, is people knowing the state of our roads, driving outside its limitations (and often their own), getting into a nasty accident then trying to cop out by blaming factors other than themselves.

Blaming factors outside one's control (bad road quality), while disregarding those one does control (speed), is ridiculous and should be disregarded without prejudice.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reinhard (Post 4700995)

In addition to this, traffic enforcement should put in more effort to eliminate 'as much as' morons as possible from the roads.
Unfortunately by this time due to corruption and less stricter norms, there are tons of 'driver's on road.

Effort should be made to cleanse them off the system by cancelling licenses on red signal jumps, violation of divider jumping etc. Strongly believe that taking them off the roads will eventually help and the initiative should start.

Recent higher fine rates are one, but more evident actions are required. Those breaking such serious yet basic common sense laws should know that they risk ending up losing the driving privilege.

His corner entry line was wrong. He apexed too early and going wide after that was inevitable. On top of that his turn in was exactly where the flyover levelled off after climbing, thus had the effect of the road dropping away exactly where he needed more traction on his tyres. Of course the smooth concrete surface didn't help. Expansion joints and rumbler strips didn't help either.

The blame is squarely on the driver. Also this crash would probably happened even on a flat road for a turn like that.

The response of the authorities is unfortunately going to be speed control instead of tall car-catcher type fence.

A similar accident could easily happen with a truck going at 40. There have been multiple accidents of vehicles or objects falling off flyovers and not all of them were caused by speed. Some were caused by unsecured loads falling off trucks, or being hit by another vehicle.

Blaming everything on speed is lazy, and masks more complex causes. Unless there is a rational and data driven analysis, no effective solutions are going to come up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sarathlal (Post 4701567)

Recent higher fine rates are one, but more evident actions are required. Those breaking such serious yet basic common sense laws should know that they risk ending up losing the driving privilege.

Discipline comes from within or doesn't come at all. Its not something that can be enforced on the communities of 21st century.

Current generation is done to be honest. It can't be "fixed". Hope is only to bring attention to these aspects, senses & responsibilities on road - into the next generation that is currently in schools. They can be groomed in the right way to be safe when they grow up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by braindead (Post 4701584)

Absolutely correct..

..if he was on a race track. But he wasn't. He was on a public road, and on a poorly designed overpass no less. He had no business doing such speeds.

Corner entry line being wrong, apexing too early, need for more traction, etc. are notes you make when you're on a race track, trying to hone your driving skills.

I completely understand the desire to go fast for someone especially driving something like a Polo GTI. I would too, to be honest. But I would never try something that could potentially jeopardize the lives of others around me.

Quote:

A similar accident could easily happen with a truck going at 40. There have been multiple accidents of vehicles or objects falling off flyovers and not all of them were caused by speed. Some were caused by unsecured loads falling off trucks, or being hit by another vehicle.

Blaming everything on speed is lazy, and masks more complex causes. Unless there is a rational and data driven analysis, no effective solutions are going to come up.

In this case, though, it's all about the speed. The driver did not have to worry about being hit by unsecured consignments. The road was empty, he went in too hot. He shouldn't have.

Long story short, could he have avoided this if he went into the corner at 50, or even 60? The answer is - Yes!

I really cannot over emphasize that it is idiots like this driver who cause hazard to everyone's lives on the road. Thoroughly incompetent but (rather I should say, hence) overconfident.

My question to all who are talking about improving road/banking/traction/speed boards etc: each improvement in design will allow for higher speed limit; what makes you think that another moron will adhere to this higher speed limit and not crash his vehicle?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reinhard (Post 4700995)

The roads must be designed with exactly these morons in mind.
The design should ensure that innocents are saved when morons make mistakes

+1 to that; most roads aren't designed to conform to standards; and flyovers in cities are just built to pass through available gaps, with many of them having dangerous S bends or curves with just speed limit boards or reflective guide strips as warning signs.

The simplest solution to design flyovers for morons is to make the ride rough so that the speed doesn't cross, say, 50kmph in any case; not that this conforms to any standard, but just a workaround given our self discipline.

Quote:

Originally Posted by alpha1 (Post 4701625)

My question to all who are talking about improving road/banking/traction/speed boards etc: each improvement in design will allow for higher speed limit; what makes you think that another moron will adhere to this higher speed limit and not crash his vehicle?

Nothing can ever bring down the number of fatal accidents to 0. The improvements will make small gains in reducing the numbers. Better roads will ensure at least some lives are saved compared to now.

Inaction because the number can't be brought to 0 would be really criminal. (And we have been living in this criminal environment for decades now sadly.)

With any accident, hindsight is 20:20, so no amount of analysis can change what happened.

https://youtu.be/czvvBPL-t9c

Ages ago when I learnt, the simplest basics one can teach were that you should see the road/obstacles/potholes ahead and drive. Back in the Premier Padmini days, I doubt such incidents even happened, worst case a fender bender. Back when people knew that they were driving a 1000+ kg car and were tuned to reality, it also helped that cars used to take almost forever to reach 100, and maintaining that speed was a task in itself.

Driving Autobahn tuned cars in India is a joke unto itself, I've seen many rashly driven Octavia VRSs, Lamborghinis and others of that ilk, which skid sideways in regular roads where the margin of error is acceptable.

Such stunts on a flyover and you have a 1500+ kg car landing from 20 feet above (just drop a fridge from that height and the sound will be deafening, leave alone something 15+ times the weight), its a horrible way to go if you're standing below. From the footage we can see that a woman escaped an 8 foot sign pole by a couple of feet, otherwise that metal pole would've easily caused another casualty. That tree, god knows saved how many more lives.

I hope we in future, use terms like tight handling, triple digit speeds, grip, sporty suspension etc more responsibly. Track is where all these terms are supposed to be used. On our roads, the most awkwardly proportioned cars with the soggiest of suspensions are adequate to get the job done (something which the new gen looks down upon with utmost disgust).

Also a member quoted something similar to a Biblical passage "let him without sin cast the first stone", true enough but if we hang on to our own rule violations and not comment on incidents like these, we're not only not correcting society, but ourselves as well. Personally, I shall do my best to follow rules and laws, each time I've been pulled over I've stopped and was answerable to the law, even if the error wasn't completely mine. That act alone made the cops take a more understanding judgement of my violation.

If growing up is a good thing, we should grow up not only by correcting ourselves, but of others as well.