[Kln]

Originally Posted by Engine_Roars

Off topic. FK should be banned for the way he talks and not just for over speeding. I just can't bear him talking not sure if it is just me or anyone else feels the same. I love Gagan's reviews. He has knowledge, he speaks well and he drives sanely.

Not just that, but just the general humblebrag attitude he sprouts off rubs me the wrong way. "Oh look I have the BMW here and Merc there and Skoda next coming in a few days and Ohh look I'm so casual I'm always late" etc etc. Like ok dude, noone cares. Plus his reviews almost never ever are useful if you're deciding it's a good car to buy or not. However, his channel is growing every day, with tons of dedicated fans. Guess he's doing something right, but just not for me.

[dark.knight]

Originally Posted by Engine_Roars

Off topic. FK should be banned for the way he talks and not just for over speeding. I just can't bear him talking not sure if it is just me or anyone else feels the same.

Well, atleast he got his name abbreviation spot on, also his branding with that R added to it, beautiful. No, its definitely not just you, I can't stand that law-breaker for even 1 second.

I remember in one of the videos he barely missed hitting a dog at full speed, such arrogance and inhumanity just because he is conveniently behind metal and glass and just pushing a pedal for which he equates as some sort of great personal capability.

Auto-journalism is dead to me, except for Team BHP. In YouTube its all about fanboyism like Mat Watson (VW superfanboy), Scotty Kilmer (Toyota fangrandpa) and this creature as you mentioned (Honda+Tata ultrafanboy).

Please report every video you see of such stunts and blatant rule-breaking, it really helps. I do it always.

[stallmaster]

Faisal Khan has removed a lot of old videos from his channel. One of those I remember clearly: he had a M800 doing ungodly speeds and hair-raising maneuvers in broad daylight. Taking u-turns at 80kmph, cutting traffic at breakneck speeds, etc.

[rajivr1612]

I took a liking to FK initially but later fizzed out. Dangerous driving aside, I don't see much of daily drive cars reviewed by him. Nowadays I watch V3 Cars - no ear busting BG music & to the point reviews.

[RavSam]

Complaining about FK is like complaining about SK of Bollywood.
A lot of people hate the way he acts, hate the way he bullies around, hate his overdramatic emotions, the way he doesn't care about the law, and lots of such other things.

But then there is this large fan base of them that people like us are just like a speck in their fan universe. A million subscribers of FK. A gazillion fans of the SK making his movies run houseful.

There are tons of people like him who get away even after doing such things; famous, influential or whatever.

Point is, in this country of 1.3 billion people we can't get triggered about everyone as our own life and mental peace then goes for a toss. There are even the "chhapri" guys who do stunts on their bikes and influence young minds around them.

We can't stop them all. Report the video and ignore. Lots of other things to worry about.

[sandeep3in]

There is a well-known automobile reviewer in Malayalam known as Vandipranthan. His skills are amazing, he could do a 100Kmph in the city and adds a disclaimer to the videos which gives him all the freedom and authority to break rules, put other road users at risk, and wreck a car. I would have recommended him to be called the Schumacher of Kerala instead of VandiPranthan.

[v12]

There are 1000s of such YouTubers and some ******* who put up speeding, stunting and unsafe videos on their channels. Some are extremely dangerous which involve high speed ridings in crowded streets, racing and road rage.

And you will be surprised at the kind of comments and likes that these channels and videos get. Why can't YouTube filter or delete such videos is beyond my understanding.

Maybe YouTube should have Moderator groups on their Mod list - and I am sure we would have banned them for life.

There are some real good reviews that I have seen on YouTube - JayD and Viveks is one of them. But if you notice, even many famous YouTubers go that extra mile to break the law to get views. We all do that - but as an influencer or a creator, they should be responsible enough to skip that part from their video. They drive dangerously and then add a comment that "such video was done in a controlled environment and should not be imitated". Since when has a public road become a controlled environment.

Even auto journals drive beyond the speed limit. Moto vloggers (even some famous ones like MN also) ride with a camera in one hand. It is dangerous and their young followers will imitate such things.

[Nikhil Beke]

https://youtu.be/l0kKCJKEKw0

Can't help reposting this from the great Joke thread!

[pgsagar]

Originally Posted by Engine_Roars

Off topic. FK should be banned for the way he talks and not just for over speeding. I just can't bear him talking not sure if it is just me or anyone else feels the same. I love Gagan's reviews. He has knowledge, he speaks well and he drives sanely.

Good that someone brought this up. Ditto here. Can't stand his jibber-jabber speech. Super hurried speech like someone put a gun to his head. Who talks like that? Apart from one certain gentleman who went by the name of Siddharta Roy, from a long-gone era. Do they show off their English proficiency or what? Dude, heard of pauses and punctuations? FK fuses all words of a sentence into kinda big word and a sentence sounds like a loooong word. I need subtitles to understand his English.

And, not to mention speeding. Oh, where do I begin? And, to top it all, that silly disclaimer which sounds like sermon to others not to speed and then goes right ahead and speeds himself. Wow! Shows a public road and calls it a controlled environs.

His millions fans? Well, what does that tell ya about our society?

[sridhar24]

I totally share the views expressed on FK videos.
Looking at the subscriber base that he has we can only see to what level the quality of the audience has gone down to and nowadays every tom dick and harry is grabbing a camera in the name of vlogs and driving the cars like crazy on public roads risking their and everyone's lives.

[Kln]

There is a channel by Anshuman Bishnoi that has some really dangerous offroading being attempted by some of the worst drivers I've had the displeasure of watching. I hope someone tells it is incredibly unsafe the way he's encouraging people to drive their vehicles.

[DicKy]

Just now saw the OP video and have to say. It makes FK look like a saint in comparison.
The guy not only speeds and weaves in traffic, but does all this with a camera in one hand!!! and at a point while doing 120+, uses the RHS steering mounted controls with his left hand.

Originally Posted by rajivr1612

I took a liking to FK initially but later fizzed out. Dangerous driving aside, I don't see much of daily drive cars reviewed by him.

Same here. I too had the guilty pleasure of seeing his acceleration videos of Indian cars, the consistent content and also him giving the beans to even old cars, some of which we don't even have POV videos.

But, it soon wore off.
- His scream would drown off the engine sound. Like, that's an 80% fun of an acceleration video taken off.
- He is neither a good road driver, not track driver.
- The way he treats cars. Pushing, slamming any movable parts with no bother.
- (not PC) His co-passenger seat trophies and tasteless "That's what she said" dialogue in almost all videos.
- Except his sitting on the seats and acceleration, he really doesn't contribute much to the review part.
- Lack of research Really gets my goat, especially when he reviews old cars. He just jumps in, prods stuff and if anything is out of ordinary he doesn't even bother to find out what it is. Sees some buttons, "Gawd knows what it is for", some odd features for old times, "don't know, don't care, Yabbidy-dabbidy". POV walkaround videos should be either voiceless (Driver's high channel, Winding Road magazine) or explain in detail (old Saabkyle04 videos). Not like a hyper teen who just got inside a car.
- The high speed driving and acceleration could be excused if he showed maturity while driving in traffic. But nope. Even now, when his past shenanigans have mellowed down, his driving still leaves a lot to be desired. No turn signals, weaving in and out of traffic.

Not singling him out or anything. But he is the pioneer of his type of videos in India and his copycats end up being wannabes who think hard acceleration and high speed driving are key to more views. Ending up doing 160+ with a camera in one hand and barely having a grip on the wheel.

[vikred]

Originally Posted by pandabear

I came across this video where the guy is driving in the most horrible fashion nearing 180 km/h on the highway with the camera on one hand he almost killed a guy on the motorbike. Such crazy guys should be blacklisted and should never be given a test drive car to review in the first place.

Thank you for starting the thread. It feels heartening to see fellow Team BHP-ians feel the same way about overspeeding and reckless driving on YouTube as I do.

Arun Pawar
I watched some of his videos last year, and then started disliking his hardly-helpful "reviews" and his clickbait-ish thumbnails. But, the Safari video you shared is another level. If you're earning from your videos, why not buy a proper head-mount GoPro, and save your and other road users' lives?

Milind
I neither liked his driving style nor his talking style. I know you can drive fast with little respect to the safety of other road users, but please don't set an example to an entire new generation of young drivers.

FK
I have seen some of his videos, where he

• says "punchy midrange", when he clearly was in the top end like 95% of the time
• says "no body roll" even before the car reached 20kmph

It looks as if he had read others' reviews before reciting it while driving. Honestly, his "reviews" hardly add deliver any value to me.

The trend now with Indian car YouTubers is to

1. complain about the lack of underthigh support in general. Smaller people may find it ok, but some guys don't mention that at all.
2. knock all over the plastics and complain about them being hard and scratchy . This was probably picked up from western media where cars cost much more, but seriously, do we really expect soft-touch plastics in a 10-lakh rupee car in 2021?
3. body roll (when you are clearly driving a tall crossover)

On the other hand, there are other good guys like Gagan Choudhary, Aayush SSM and PilotOnWheels (Malayalam) who all talk and drive with much more care.

[naveen.raju]

Originally Posted by stallmaster

Faisal Khan has removed a lot of old videos from his channel. One of those I remember clearly: he had a M800 doing ungodly speeds and hair-raising maneuvers in broad daylight. Taking u-turns at 80kmph, cutting traffic at breakneck speeds, etc.

Yes, there were many crazy videos. I remember one where he redlines a city the entire video.

God knows when this would happen on public road. Watch from 14:00. I had already mentioned this before, it's like a desi version of Carwow but a really bad version though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prqfN-BD_u4&t

Both Faisal Khan and Vandipranthan are BHPians. Am sure they will be reading these.

[theqca]

The main issue here for me wasn't the lack of professional equipment but the shoddy "review" and the lack of knowledge by the reviewer.

I'm okay with the guy not using proper audio / video equipment. But I'm not okay with the stuff he says.

It is however a free country and we've got loads of people who appear to be very happy with his reviews so he's going to continue "reviewing" more cars. Makes me realise our standards are really low.