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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-6.html)

"I didn't see the speed limit sign because I was going too fast," eh? No. Not an impressive excuse. Even if it was true.

We drive in km, which makes the numbers seem bigger. Sometimes I have to do a conversion to the miles that I grew up with to get a better feel for a speed. Just under 65MPH. That, leaving aside th legal speed limit, is, in absolute terms (and in terms of the speeds that that car is built to handle) really not much at all. He had all three lanes of road available to him, and failed to get around the corner. A very fundamental driving-skill failure. I'm no boy racer; I'm nearly 70 years old, but I believe I could have done better. Not that I would have tried.

Speed breakers can be seriously badly designed, turning them into car breaker, or even biker killers. I don't know what kind of speed breaker took that car off the road, but, with a half-decently-made speed breaker, accidents are the result of the speed not the breaker.

Sudden braking for speed humps, cameras, etc etc has also been known to result in rear-ending. The fault is not with the anti-speeding device, it is with the tailgating.

A classic case which happens ever so often in the race track with newbies.

1. Carried too much speed into a corner that the driver/car couldn't handle.

2. Understeering FWD car.

The main reason this incident has grabbed more eyeballs is that the car flew. Otherwise, this could happen to anyone who can't handle speed. It'll be good if people driving powerful cars take a lesson on skid control.

AWD makes up for the driver's inexperience to a greater extent. But of course, when an AWD car loses traction mid-corner, one can only pray!

The Hyderabad muncipal authority should add additional barriers on top of existing ones on that curve so that the barriers are tall enough not to cause such incidents. I also saw a whatsapp forward video where a bike also lost control and 2 people fell down to their deaths at the same spot. So unless the crash barriers are increased in their height, expect to see more such incidents in future. The flyover design is flawed with the right turn when still climbing. Lets get it, the flyover is here to stay. Only the risk of falling over in case of crash has to be mitigated by erecting additional barriers.

I have driven on this ramp every day since it was opened. The concrete road surface is bumpy as with all other SRDP flyovers. This reduces traction. The subject steep turn is followed by and immediate dip (down ramp). Anybody taking this turn faster than 40 will feel the loss of traction. If you expect to take this turn at 100 then you will probably need Formula 1 style spoilers. On my GT with new tyres and correct tyre pressure I feel the grip going at just 50kmph. The root cause is the road design here although the precipitating factor was high speed and negligence. Crash barriers and a higher edge wall could have saved a life by preventing the car from flying over. Photos from today morning. The flyover is closed and government stooges are painting rumble strips.

From what I see, the camber seems alright. It’s not negative, from the analysis video that I saw on page 2 of this forum. The bump though seems like a real problem, but I still blame overspeeding here. The eastern freeway in Mumbai sees a lot of accidents just due to this particular behaviour.

I am not defending the reckless attitude of this driver. But the signage is pathetic. Tiny signs placed on the left edge wall. This is a 3 lane flyover with traffic advisory for cars to stick to the right and middle lane. From the right lane the signs are barely visible during the day. They are more visible at night due to reflective stickers. The signage I am sure do not meet any international standards. I have in my engineering career delivered projects which required road design, signage and pavement markings. Therefore I am aware of design codes for the above as practiced in three continents. To illustrate how small right curve sign is, watch the twitter video of this crash where the sign board barely missing a woman pedestrian walking with a phone, a few meters before where the the car landed.

See the attached photo taken about 50m before curve begins. At this location you would expect bold flashing signs warning of a steep curve ahead. Not some tiny lollipop signs placed where the curve starts.

The signage is plenty - size and quantity - for the speeds this flyover was designed to support - ~40kmph.


At expressway speeds, I would agree that the signage qualifies as small to notice.

The one from Mini Cooper accident is big enough to scrape a Corolla's underbody on slightly more than crawl speeds.

Precisely my point, those who didn't spot it, result in even more spectacular accidents than you'd normally see.
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There's a bridge on Ambur-Vaniyambadi stretch which has a 2 sharp back to back curves which can't be taken anything more 80-90. It is peppered with rumblers right from the ascent and the frequency increases when you close in on the curve. There are similar setups on the finished 4-lane sections of Pune-Nasik at town entry and exit point merges.

The tree saved at least 5 lives.

While I agree that infrastructure in India is poor, I think this incident is purely the result of the drivers' lack of driving skill and/or common sense.

There will be flyover joints, curved flyovers, 40 kmph limits, etc. Nothing justifies driving too fast on an urban flyover.

No doubt that the driver was at fault.

But look at the flyover design, there is absolutely no angle of banking (infact it looks like negative). When will authorities and so called Civil Engineers own up part of Indias road troubles. Poor speed breakers, poorly designed roads, poor material of construction.

There are similar turns on Mumbai Mohammed Ali road flyover.
Even that road had witnessed two wheeler accidents, after which authorities closed that road for two wheelers.
And just like this, the rumbler strips came after accidents had happened.

The big difference is that road is two lane tarmac road, while this is a 3 lane road cement concrete.
The easiest thing they can do here is to close off the left most lane near that turn, so that traffic slows down during narrow approach.

Must say looking at the bike video that this is a tricky turn, and I am surprised how that Creta managed the turn.
Hopefully since this is in media everywhere, people would be more cautious on this flyover henceforth.

Disagree. If you have the time and patience you may read this section of the US code for signage. Australian, Canadian, Gulf Middle East (eg Qatar Construction Standard) are not very different.

https://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/htm/2009/part2/part2c.htm

Very well said. You can't just make things fool proof when someone is bent on not following the rules and regulations. This "don't care two hoots" attitude is primarily the cause of most accidents and not the poorly laid out roads and bridges.

Here, its the same attitude at work. High flying start up CEO, high on angel funding, feeling himself to be the Lord of the angels. Just see the fully dark sunfilms on this moron's car. Aren't these illegal? This high flyer couldn't care less, as he is the CEO driving a fancy car.
Many a times, the car and the accessories also speak volumes about the person behind its wheels.

It's just heart breaking that a family going about their daily affairs has just been destroyed by the devilish acts of this idiot.

Exactly, this is not an expressway. Flyover was built to take the right turn without having to wait in the signal. If that is so difficult to understand for an educated person then we deserve the long waits in traffic signal :Frustrati