[finneyp]

I believe the main causes of Accidents in India are:

1. Non-adherence to Traffic Rules.
2. Improperly planned & built Road infrastructure.

[Swaroop77]

No wonder Maharashtra highway safety patrol is concerned. It has amongst the highest accidents.
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/street...harashtra.html

I have seen people driving @100 KM/hr in Mumbai WE highway in daytime ( not peak hrs), so it is easy to relate why. But the traffic sense in Mumbai is lot better I guess ( as compared to other cities).

[supremeBaleno]

Originally Posted by MalluDude

But have they taken into consideration the following facts? I've found them to be a big factor in Kerala roads,
(2) Unscientifically built speed-breakers.

While I agree with your other points, I find the humps in Kerala (atleast my part - Alappuzha) to be some of the most correctly designed ones - much better than the ones I have seen in metros like Chennai. Maybe its not the case in TVM.

[simplyself]

Drunken driving is a major factor. Normally cautious drivers sometimes get involved in accidents. One new factor is driving and talking on mobile phone. Lack of rest and drivers dozing at the wheel too are major contributors.

A high speed road which doesnt bank at turns too causes vehicle driver to loose control.

I observed many of the city drivers feeling very uncomfortable when on highways at night. Many cannot judge the distance and speed of oncoming vehicle while overtaking.

Most reckless and stupidest is overtaking on the bends, especially on left bends which are blind turns.

These are in addition to all the factors said elsewhere in the forum.

[Jeep]

Today I saw/heard one biker (who was listening to ipod while riding on highway, overtaking a TATA ACE) nearly getting killed by a truck. The ACE obstructed my view, but my brother, who was driving the car, saw the incident.
The biker was 'riding cool' on the highway (between Dharmapuri and Krishnagiri) on a 2 lane, on the lane separator 'line' when a truck came in the opposite direction overtaking a moped. The truck was doing about 50 kmph and the biker was doing about 35 kmph. The noise was huge, and the biker fell on the road (thankfully away from the truck's rear tyres)... he lost his front indicator (and possibly the mirror). The trucker didn't stop and people were not bothered to chase him as well (since the biker was not hurt). My bro told me that the biker was at fault, since he was listening to music. I thought the trucker was at fault, since I thought he crossed the centre line a bit (there was no clear line).
Aother incident today (that I saw live) on the same road - a trucker scraped the sides of a bus and the side glasses came down as powder (there wasn't enough space there since road widening is going on).
A third one: A truck carrying sand was toppled just in front of the Krishnagiri toll booth. Ambulance was carrying the truck driver to a nearby hospital.
Saw two more ambulances on my way today. I think today has been a day of accidents in NH7

[srijit]

first: Improve road structure. Govt has no right to criticize people when roads are poorly maintained with peoples tax money.
second: Introduce automatic fines through machines like ones in Singapore. Send it out for collection monthly, or better yet take it directly from car owners account. That should stop quite a bit of rash, irresponsible driving

[1100D]

I would not attach much value to this report, although officially such reports do instigate corrective action plans.

For example, two years back, an Alto belonging to a colleague overturned. The cause was put down by the cops to be overspeeding. When the truth was, he is not a character that one would associate with speed. He used to drive super slow. What actually happened was that a stray dog had moved into the way of an overtaking car, which swerved and my friend had swerved to avoid hitting the car, in turn the car hit a mound and overturned, all at 50kmph.

What was the cause? a stray animal on the road? another vehicle not keeping adequate gap while overtaking? a mound on the left side of the road? Well the answer was speeding, and the fact that he was doing 50kmph was construed as a misleading statement.

So we all know how such accidents are assigned causes. Also who (credibility/qualification wise) assigns them.

[clevermax]

Originally Posted by 1100D

What actually happened was that a stray dog had moved into the way of an overtaking car, which swerved and my friend had swerved to avoid hitting the car, in turn the car hit a mound and overturned, all at 50kmph.

What was the cause? a stray animal on the road? another vehicle not keeping adequate gap while overtaking? a mound on the left side of the road? Well the answer was speeding, and the fact that he was doing 50kmph was construed as a misleading statement.

Here the cause can be 'lack of presence of mind', I'd have hit the dog straight instead of swerving to either sides.

[BaCkSeAtDrIVeR]

The old lady (who inherited the road as her "stridhan") crosses the two lane undivided road, unmindful of all the traffic. The cyclist swerves to the right, on the path of a car, who brakes hard, and the biker behind the car rear ends the car. He is not wearing a helmet and is injured severely. The car could have avoided braking if the VVIP vehicle was not parked on (his) left - it is a no parking zone.

Which section of the statistic does this accident end up in?

A poorly designed study will give you bad results. One of foundations of a good research proejct is to start with an appropriately framed objective and methodology.

[DocG]

Well all those accidents to do with speeding, I blame Adrenaline! It feels good to drive fast, and hence we do it. However not all of us are able to control our cars at speed. This is what happens in all those one off accidents, the ones that happen late night, which we read about in the papers....

However I think the #1 cause of accidents in India is the fact that we have a bunch of farmers and tractor drivers driving trucks!!! The RTO is totally to blame. We all know how easy obtaining a licence is.

[jkdas]

from a mail. Neat advt.

[theMAG]

This goes to prove that the govt in this country doesnt regard motoring hygiene as a priority - I get the feeling that they regard it more of a "city thing" to be of any national interest. Sad.

[maven]

On the day of Holi there was a head on collison on the Delhi-Noida expressway between a three wheeler auto and a Zen. yes i know this one is difficult to believe but many people just love driving on the wrong side.

Dont know where would these get classified

[rks]

Originally Posted by GTO

The Maharashtra Highway Safety Patrol has concluded a study that lasted the entire of Y2007, and has completely nullified some accident-related myths. For instance:

• A whopping 60% of accidents, and 64% of fatalities occur due to overspeeding.
• Overloaded / overcrowded vehicles are second on the cause of fatality.
• Third on the list is the sheer lack of driving skill. However, this causes a lesser (relatively) number of deaths, presumably due to the lower speeds maintained by unskilled drivers.

This study overlooks a few very important factors.

1. Poor condition of the vehicles and ignorance of the average driver regarding vital operational and maintenance requirements is probably a major contributing factor. E.g. how many of these guys who overspeed on the Expressway know about the importance of tyre/wheel maintenance, tyre pressures, etc.? Not to mention steering, suspension, brakes, and so on. Our penny-pinching attitude no doubt plays an important role in poor vehicle maintenance.

2. Unskilled drivers may not themselves be amongst the casualities because of their presumed slow speed. But to assert that they do not cause fatalities due this reason is just plain wrong. If you check out the reason for many of these accidents, there will likely be a speeding vehicle *and* one or more slow-moving vehicles involved. Often these slow-moving vehicles are more to blame for the accidents, because of the sheer ignorance of the unskilled drivers involved.

3. And as mentioned, our road conditions *have* to be a major cause of accidents. This includes badly designed roads/intersections without proper warning signs or signal lights, potholes/bumps/stones, careless pedestrians/cyclists, stray animals, etc.

[Xehaust]

Point 3. caught my eye. Just a few hours ago, i almost banged my car. You see, there is a long lane which i must go through to reach a particular building. This lane is pitch black if there is no light. It does have streetlights but these are useless. There are lots of them but the lights dont put any light on the road at all. I wonder whats the use of them.

Back to my incident. There is roadwork going on and they have put huge bricks (about 10 inches thick) on the road helter skelter. Yesterday they werent there. Today they were. Lying in the middle of the road throughout the lane. Almost banged but managed to swerve away.