[arun_josie]

Kanakapura Road: Very rashly driven BMTC bus almost hit a truck head-on and me. (watch from 0:30):

This happened few weeks back on the kanakapura road, towards bangalore. I was among a queue of cars with 5+ cars in front of me and another 3-4 behind me. Since the road was a bit wider in that stretch, this BMTC bus tried to overtake multiple cars in one-go even though all the cars were following each other little closely and a truck was approaching on the opposite direction. I didn't have any option to let him overtake and he braked at the last moment. At this point he almost hit the truck and side-swiped me.

Despite this hard-braking incident, he continued to drive the same way. I wondered if the bus passengers realized how rash their driver was and if anyone inside will ask him to drive responsibly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4jmgavuu5s

[sridhu]

Originally Posted by SR-71

Offtopic - What is the make of the dash cam you have. The pics are supremely clear for night mode.

Originally Posted by a4anurag

Looks like a Street Guardian SG9665GC.

Anurag has it: Street Guardian it is. Fairly trouble free. The viofo A119 in my other car is good too - only the GPS module does not seem to like me!

SR-71: I had another scary experience about 10 years ago; only I was in the car that time.

We were returning after my niece's wedding in Madras and since I was tired ,I hired a temp driver. Known guy.

Near where Madurai idli kadai is now, I looked over and was shocked to see the driver fast asleep!

Put my hand on the wheel & gently woke him up. He drove to a chai shop and told he had been up all night due to some issue in his kuppam!

Took the wheel and drove until Krishnagiri to let him catch some sleep.

[Lobogris]

Originally Posted by Thilak29

I too had a similar experience today (link below)and I honestly think, road crossing should be taught at school!

I am curious about something in this video. Did you not see the person trying to cross the road as well as the bus that was parked? No doubt the pedestrian should cross only when the road is clear but knowing how people in India walk on the roads, if you had seen the pedestrian, could you not have slowed down just in case he continued to cross the road? If one sees a bus or another vehicle parked on the edge, one should slow down as that vehicle can pull back on to the road or someone could get out of that vehicle without warning. If one sees a pedestrian on the road, one has no choice but to slow down and even stop if needed. Perhaps the video makes the pedestrian look farther away than in real life and masks the fact that you did try to stop.

I do agree with you that schools should teach people how to cross a road. Even in big cities I see educated people crossing while the light is green for oncoming traffic rather than waiting a few seconds. I also see people crossing holding their hands to cars in moving traffic when there is a traffic light just a few yards away and all they have to do is wait for it to turn red. Finally there are plenty of fools crossing a busy road right under or near a pedestrian overpass or underpass.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by Lobogris

I do agree with you that schools should teach people how to cross a road. ...

We think of other countries tending to better at this sort of thing, but fifty years ago and more, I wondered why the British Highway Code was not taught in British schools. We all use roads, whether we drive/ride or not.

I do agree that seeing a pedestrian on (or, sometimes, even near) a road calls for defensive action and being prepared for whatever they may do.

[locusjag]

Sharing an experience from my side.

We were all (5 of us) tired after finishing a darshan at Tirumala temple and were headed back to Chennai at maybe 9 PM in mid 2012. I was driving and only my sister was awake in the backseat of our 2008 Swift Vxi. I remember a lot of road-laying work being done back then and there was absolutely no lighting of any sort on the highway.

A lot of vehicles had a myriad of 4 or 6 extra spotlights to aid in their vision and inadvertently, to blind other motorists that were facing them.

In a dark stretch, I suddenly just felt like I should switch to high beam. And I did it, to be greeted by the sight of a mound of lumped red sand 5 feet high, maybe 5 - 6 car-lengths away. It would have served as a ramp and launched us into the air, with me driving at 60 Kmph.

Thankfully, 60 Kmph is just okay for a non-ABS equipped car in those conditions to deftly maneuver around and we took to an unannounced diversion in the pitch-darkness. But I still didn't have the heart to leave the high beam on, since it was absolutely blinding for me to receive high-beamed rays of light in such darkness from other motorists. I drove on to Chennai by switching between low and high beams, on and off.

How do we even get by in our country?

[Avalanche2409]

Originally Posted by locusjag

How do we even get by in our country?

Happened to me as well, infact more than a couple of times.
I too am quite considerate when it comes to using high beam on highways or even city roads. I keep shuffling between high and low beam if the traffic is sparse, doing which I might look like a fool to others.
It has happened that just when I subconsciously decided to switch to high beam, voila! I was in for a surprise. I just shudder to think of the scene if I hadn't turned the beam high, I could have killed someone or got myself into a big trouble.
That's why, sometimes, I feel the way our highways are built, esp. the lack of lightning almost everywhere, people are bound to use their high beams. Add to it the reckless attitude of pedestrians, open access to animals and non-existing road manners of other drivers/riders, these high beams must have saved more lives than taken.

[locusjag]

Originally Posted by Avalanche2409

That's why, sometimes, I feel the way our highways are built, esp. the lack of lightning almost everywhere, people are bound to use their high beams. Add to it the reckless attitude of pedestrians, open access to animals and non-existing road manners of other drivers/riders, these high beams must have saved more lives than taken.

Mate, that's an incredibly different point of view and it hits somewhat close to home too, even if it is a partial take on the topic. Take my own near-miss for instance; 5 of us were saved by the high beam; I agree that it paid off for us in a circumstance where poor infrastructure nearly did us in.

But it's quite complex on the whole. I can be safe by using high beam, but not so much the others around me.

And I've always wondered about this - when "blinded" by high beam from the opposite side, in my opinion we lose our peripheral vision and ability to spot objects outside of the throw of all headlights combined.

Humans have two types of cells that receive different wavelengths of light in our retina- the rods and the cones. The cones are more numerous towards the periphery of our circular-shaped eyes. The cones are responsible for our vision in the dark and they are hyper-sensitive to movement. Ever noticed how you don't notice something that's not in motion, and then you suddenly notice it out of the corners of your eyes once it moves?

Anyways, your point got me thinking - loss of peripheral vision is what that I'm losing, as a viewer of high beamed headlights. It keeps the other guy safe, the one using high-beam, i.e. The resultant risk though is that, when there's a pedestrian crossing from across a median and headlights from the opposite side blind me, the pedestrian is done for. I just won't see him, no way. He could be dancing in the darkness in a cheerleader outfit with a colorful mop, but I wouldn't be able to spot him since my cones would be drowned in excess light. Had I not been blinded by lights, my peripheral vision and ability to see things in the dark would have kicked in and I'd have done what's necessary next.

Anyway, this discussion reminds me of that ethical question which is being asked of self-driving cars today: If a small child runs out in front of a car, should the car save its occupants or the child? And more pertinently, why do we even have to choose between whose lives matter more?

It's rhetorical, you don't have to answer it. Neither are you wrong, nor I right. Good point though.

[itsmb]

There are some incidents in your life which impact you deeply and you want to thank Almighty (even an atheist like me did that) that you were unaffected by them in the end.
One such near miss incident happened with me today morning when I was commuting to my hotel. BHPians belonging to NCR who travel south on NH-2 must be aware of Flyover construction in Palwal, because of this construction entire highway traffic has been diverted on the service road. Which basically means a lot of traffic chaos in this city, people are willing to travel 1 km in opposite direction to avoid a U-turn 1.5 km away. I am not ashamed to mention that not even bikers but cars, trucks, ambulances and multi axles do this routinely. The traffic police is only interested in warming their pockets, traffic discipline is their last concern. Now coming back to the incident, I was driving behind a Tata Ace, both of us doing 40-50 kmph comfortably in morning at 0745 with little traffic. Everything was going smooth and I was in no hurry to overtake Ace, listening to light music and planning my day ahead. This is how the situation was, please ignore the bike as the picture has been taken from the net. My car does not have a dashcam so I have used my poor skills to make an animation out of pictures downloaded from the net.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...&v=vOU7sNwwblE

The animation is very raw but actual situation was grave, the Ace driver did not give any indication that a biker from wrong side is crossing ahead of him, no honking, no brakes and suddenly the biker appears in front of me. I braked as hard as I could, avoided him, saw him passing by smiling at me. Yes I was a Joker for him, because I applied brakes. For next five to ten seconds I could not gather the courage to move my vehicle even by an inch. I moved slowly, luckily there was a traffic signal ahead, I stopped, placed my right palm over my heart and breathed heavily, his smiling face appearing continuously in front of my eyes. I do not remember the make, model or color of the bike but his smiling face; Everything happened in a flash, maybe a second or two.
My mistake- I was driving slowly, I applied brakes and I am a LAW ABIDING IDIOT CITIZEN.
His achievements- He was riding on the wrong side of National Highway at high speed, his wife as a pillion, no helmets at all and that SMILE OF ACCOMPLISHMENT.

[Thilak29]

Originally Posted by Lobogris

Did you not see the person trying to cross the road as well as the bus that was parked? if you had seen the pedestrian, could you not have slowed down just in case he continued to cross the road?

Thanks for your response and sorry I noticed your post very late. This place where the bus was parked has a wedding hall where it is usual for buses which ferried guests to the event parked and across the road there are few petty shops. This place is not a usual bus stop. I do slow down when I see a bus or any passenger vehicle parked on the side of the road and cross the vehicle at moderate speed. In this case, this young man was at the shop, seem to have made a quick purchase, turned back and crossed the road without looking either way. When he crossed the road, he began chatting with the driver/person inside the bus. All this happened very quickly, I honked (I keep mic muted in my dashcam) and tried to change course slightly to avoid hitting this gentleman. I had two challenges, there was another car (white swift) coming in opposite direction, changing course drastically could have resulted in a collision, slowing down considerably would have resulted in rear-ending my car.

[murthy_p]

At 11:05 PM last night, an Innova entered NICE Road from Mysore Road side. The driver didn't bother to check for vehicles travelling on the main road and tried to overtake a lorry at the entry point. I was cruising under 100kmph and this car appeared in front of me from nowhere. Slammed the breaks and honked non-stop which made the Innova driver realize his mistake and moved slightly towards the left which gave me enough space to overtake the car. Thankfully, I was on the right lane (always drive on the right lane near entry and exit points) which allowed me to maneuver the car and avoid the collision. Was returning from a temple visit and we were saved by his grace.

[Thilak29]

Here is my encounter (second in this thread), extreme jaywalking in the middle of the highway, while vehicles are speeding at night.

https://youtu.be/sxv-QT9hKQA

(Duration of clip : 4 sec)

[deetee]

Are you sure it's not a ghost. Too stupid for a real person to do that. One has to be extremely lucky not to be overrun on such a dark fast road.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by deetee

Are you sure it's not a ghost.

If not a ghost now, probably will be soon!

[NPV]

A near miss today. Stopped for the red light at a 3 road junction and was waiting for the green light. This is almost a left handed curve after the light, so a blind turn. The third road is one that merges in from right. Imagine a "Y" rotated 90 degrees to right.

There were 2 guys on a scooter to my left and in front of my car, they were carrying a large gunny sack in the footwell.
When the light turned green, the scooter moved first since it had stopped on the zebra crossing in front of the stop line and I followed (I had stopped behind the stop line when the light was red). After the left curve, I was going to pass the scooter from right and seemed like a very easy and safe overtake at low speed (scooter was still 10 feet ahead I had about 4-5 feet between my car and the scooter to the left). Suddenly he swerves to right almost trying to make a U-turn! Quick check on traffic to my right and in the distance I see a scooter trying to sneak in on Red light from the third road and he was gunning to overtake me from right

Then I see that there are cops ahead stopping 2 wheelers and these guys saw them too late and were trying to escape. Dropped the overtake manoeuvre and just braked and stopped behind the scooter quickly. Since speeds were low, did not get rear-ended. The guys on the scooter lost balance due to the gunny sack and were quickly picked up by the cops. In the meantime, the scooterist who had jumped the red light saw the cops and made a quick getaway by turning back.

[sud]

Originally Posted by Thilak29

Here is my encounter (second in this thread), extreme jaywalking in the middle of the highway, while vehicles are speeding at night.

This reminds me of a similar incident which happened to me in 2015. I was driving in Salem to Dharmapuri section. I was probably doing around 80'ish in fast lane and the road was curving towards right. Noticed a drunkard walking in the middle of fast lane. I couldn't cut left as another vehicle approaching from behind in that lane. So I ended up braking hard and came to stand still few meters. But I was not so lucky as the vehicle behind me hit from back. He didn't tail gate me as well but probably he noticed late that I braked hard. There was an elderly man on the vehicle so I let him go without any fuss. But the drunkard idiot walked past us and continued again in the middle of the lane as if nothing happened