[bravo_romeo]

Here I am posting 3 videos of my experience on Indian roads.

1. I was travelling from Mysore to Bengaluru on the day of the incident, (Please ignore dash cam date, This happened in April for sure) So when I was approaching an unmanned signal at Mandya, 1 biker just jumped in front of my car. You really need to be skilled to pull that stunt.

https://youtu.be/POBTg7xfvVA

2. Goes best with the tagline "savdhani hati durghatna ghati". This happened near Salem,
As right lane was moving fast, I decided to change my lane, so I turned on my vehicle's right indicator and was looking in Rt ORVM for any vehicle.
Just about that, The trucker ahead of me decided to go off-road and slowed down.
Thanks to my co-driver who physically alerted me or would have kissed Octavia's bumper.

https://youtu.be/cBb16PuTT-o

3.This you can say part 2 of "Savdhani Hati Durghatna Ghati".
Trucker in the wrong lane narrowly escaped hitting a parked car and oncoming biker.

https://youtu.be/bxW_fAzZ8qM

[Hayek]

I have had 2 near miss incidents:

1) Was returning home during the monsoon via Tulsi Pipe Road - it was raining heavily, and the road was not well lit. A scooterist to my front left fell (not sure why) and slid across the road towards me. Fortunately, I jammed the brake and avoided hitting him by a few feet.
2) This was truly odd. I was driving north along the King Circle flyover in broad daylight (around 830 am on a clear day). For those who are not familiar with this, the flyover ends just before a railway bridge leading to King Circle station, and one of the pillars of the railway bridge is located in line with the median between the two Northbound lanes of the flyover. I was in the right lane, and there was an Uber / Ola driver in a Ritz who was driving between the two lanes. Perhaps he drifted off the sleep, but he kept going along the median and swerved right at the last minute trying to avoid the concrete base of the pillar of the rail bridge. He failed to avoid this, and rammed into the base, and his car started to sway right as if it would topple. I was too close the him to stop, and for a second though his car would collapse on mine as I passed him. Fortunately, his car stabilised before crossing its CG, and swung back left, and there was enough space for me to avoid him and cross over.

Certainly see both of these as providential escapes from potentially messy situations

[BenjiRoss]

Had this near miss on a recent road trip of Vellore to Kodaikanal (somewhere before salem).
Thankfully I saw this pedestrian on the highway quite early and a loud honk alerted him. I didnt have to swerve much as he quickly moved back.
He continued to walk on the road as I watched him in the rearview mirror.

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

[ChiragM]

Originally Posted by Thilak29

Here is my encounter

This has happened to me as well. I was driving on Mysore road on the right-most lane. Some guy decided to cross the road in pitch darkness. I noticed him only when I was right next to him. Luckily, he did not run in front of the car, but instead chose to wait in the middle lane.

[coolmind]

I have faced so many such incidents(near miss accidents :P) but very few are remembered as the frequency is more. Its not that I dont drive carefully, but it happens. Should say sheer bad luck.

This happened about a few days back when I was going back home from office in the evening on my Apache, suddenly from a coconut vendor shop, a coconut slips off and started rolling towards my bike. I was mid 40's and tried to apply the brakes to the max possible. However, I could not stop. Luckily, the coconut just travelled through the tires of my bike without hurting me. The road was full of rocks and if I had slipped, it would have hurt me very badly.

[karthi.stark]

This happened to me two days ago:

It was around 8:30 in the night, and I was cycling back home from my tutions. I was following this bike (Hero splendor, if I'm not wrong) very closely as the there was neck to neck traffic. At one of the T - junctions, while I was cruising at around 20 kmph, the bike which I was following stopped all of a sudden in the middle of the road! What's worse, the lady who was riding pillon got down without caring to look at what's coming from behind! Reason? She was talking on the phone! Had I lost my concentration even for a second, I would've surely mowed her down. What's even worse, she was carrying a kid as well!

And the best part is she just walked away as though nothing had happened! I felt this to be absolutely ridiculous!

The entire incident got me so annoyed that I started cursing everything - right from those careless pedestrians to the drivers on the wrong side of the road!

If there's one thing I learnt from this entire incident, it is to never take your eyes off the road even for a single second. A lot of things can go wrong in that one second!

This experience also made me understand the kind of sufferings my dad goes through everyday on his way to his office. He comes home and starts telling me stories about how he had a near miss and all, but like any other teen, I never bothered about it!

It was indeed a good experience for me as there was a lot to learn!

Cheers,
Karthi.stark

[ObsessedByFIAT]

I had a close shave on Friday late evening.
I had to pick my wife from her office and was in my Nano along with my son. Both belted up.

I had to make a right turn at one of the intersection and was waiting for the signal to turn green. I went around the circle to take the right and a cabbie bypassed the circle and was gunning straight into me. He almost t-boned me. Was saved by a whisker.

That left my son all shaken up.

I let go off the situation and continued on the left lane. A couple of kilometres ahead, I was overtaking a slow moving truck from the right and was coming back to the left lane. That same cabbie again cut me off from the left and again I was saved by a couple of inches. The car this time over was being driven even more rashly. Since it is a MIDC area, the road is almost always full of trucks and miscellaneous traffic. The cab disappeared in a matter of seconds.

We continued on our way, picked up my wife and reached home.

My son is now scared of being driven around in Nano as he no longer feels safe in it. This morning he refused to be dropped to school in nano. :(

[lazybird]

Ok last weekend, I had this near miss experience when going to Guntur, my in-law's place. There is a long stretch of road which is 6 laned between Nellore and Ongole, I was in the middle lane and cruising around 100 mark. Out of no where, a gaint tyre appears right in the middle of the road. I got an early warning by an Alto which was ahead of me, and could just avoid hitting.

http://youtu.be/FvfIi2ARY-8

I wonder what could have been the consequences had I hit it. I drive a 2007 SX4 ZXI petrol.

[Akhileshmdp]

Riding my TBTS 2011 with a pillion on the Kharagpur-Kolkata Kona Expressway, was supposed to take a right turn to the manufacturing plant I worked for, suddenly I lose balance and fall down, no one hit me, I didn't lose balance because of something I did, road is still smooth, no water puddles anywhere and then suddenly it catches my eye, a white line trailing my bike and upon inspection a bit off the front tyre a pebble showing clear marks of hard rubbing, which got stuck between the road and tyre thus causing the episode, a situation which I don't think I could have avoided, but post that have been more vigilant but still not sure my eyes catch each pebble on the road, any advises are most welcome

[Popeye]

On a fine morning while driving towards the city centre in Pune, I put the car in Cruise control. Seeing there is less traffic, I start cruising at 80kmph. A tempo in front of me has no intention of matching my speed so I try to pass him on his left (bad decision). Somehow this chap remembers the traffic rules and gives me side by going on the left lane. This kind of confuses my brain and instead of slowing down by pressing the brakes, I press the accelerator. I am ony inches from his rear bumper as sense prevails and I do the right thing of pressing the brakes.

My wife sitting besides me is furious and frightened at the same time . I immediately get the car out of cruise by now and repeat my ritualistic checks to ensure everything is okay. I am pleading my apologies to my wife and thanks to my guarding angels that its only a near miss.

[Nalin1]

Went on a solo drive to Vani Vilas Sagar dam just to give the Terrano a good workout as it had not hit the highway for a while .

I was cruising on NH 4 at around 100 KMPH. A Captur then zoomed ahead of me at some speed! I decided to catch up with him and then started following him with some pedal to metal stuff! Then I glanced at the speedo and realized that I have reached some unmentionable speeds . So I let the Captur go and went back to normal. Just after about half a KM, there was half burnt/half damaged tyre bang in the middle of the road. I was able to spot it, glance at the ORVM, used the indicator and avoid it comfortably. How? Because I had dropped back to around 100!

Yet another realization that NOT a single road in our country is safe beyond 90 to 100 KMPH. Or in other words, anything beyond those speeds gives us almost no time to react to such ridiculous things like tyres in the middle of roads!

[Raghav_K]

Last Friday, the Grand Southern trunk road (NH-45) was busy with a lot of vehicles going out of Chennai. I was wary of the weekend travelers and was maintaing a safe speed and a safe distance from everyone. I guess I was a bit impatient/hurrying at the end of my journey. A truck cut into my lane, I let him and was following him, wondering " Am I too close?" and this happened. Usually I do not overtake without a clear view in front, or tailgate heavy vehicles, this time being an exception.

https://youtu.be/Tkon_1ZRQGU

That XUV500 appeared to be a new one, and I guess the driver was not really paying attention to the oncoming vehicles before entering the lane. I could not hard brake as I had a heavy vehicle tailing me, saw the gap and took it. Got lucky!

[Swapnil4585]

Jaycycling in the night

I was travelling to Jalgaon from Solapur. I started at around 10.30 pm from Solapur and reached Ahmednagar at around 2 am. Took a break there and started driving towards Aurangabad again.

I was in the right lane cruising at 90 kph and suddenly an old man riding his cycle on the wrong side in that freezing dark night popped out of nowhere. I barely managed to swerve the car to the left to save him. I still believe that I saved him just by half a foot and that he was not really a man riding his cycle in that hour of the night.

I had encountered a very similar situation while travelling to Pune on a similar cold winter night on the same Aurangabad - Ahmednagar road. Don't know if it is a haunted road or not. Needless to state, I stopped my journey at the very next decent hotel and slept off right away.

[supremeBaleno]

Though I started this thread with an experience I had many years ago, I wasn't looking forward to another near-miss experience. While the first incident was my avoiding getting hit, the recent near-miss was me barely avoiding hitting someone else. To say that it scared the crap out of me would be an understatement. ☹️

On 22-Dec-2018 I am driving on the NH-47 from Cochin to my parent's home for the Xmas holidays. It's a single-lane-each-way road and I am driving at around 60kmph & there's a whole line of cars in front of me, like a convoy.

A few kms before Alappuzha, suddenly the guy at the very front of the convoy brakes for a traffic light & all cars behind brake one by one. It should be a normal tap on the brakes for me too. But inspite of braking hard, I see that there is no braking effect - the car is just sliding forward, with the wheels locked (?). There's a new Honda City in front which I am now pretty sure I am going to rear-end. If he was looking in his rear view mirror, he would have shit his pants seeing me barreling towards his car's rear.

With less than 10metres from impact, I instinctively steer to the right, barely avoiding him and find myself on the oncoming traffic's lane. Lack of median on the highway was a god-send. Luckily due to the traffic light, oncoming traffic was also stopped at the signal and the lane was empty. And I avoided a collision. If not, the Baleno would have become a piece of junk. Though inspite of how much I love my car, I clearly remember worrying about the guy whose car I was going to hit.

Kids were asleep on the rear seat and never knew till we told them - there wasn't any big drama inspite of the sliding, sudden flick of the steering etc.
While wifey was in front passenger seat & awake, till I made the last-minute flick to the right, she wasn't aware of the seriousness of the situation.

RCA : The Brake Master Cylinder of my car had a known issue affecting hard braking (normal braking is fine). Part wasn't available so could not get it changed - have since ordered it. While I knew that the brakes aren't up to the mark and was thus driving well within the speed limit (80kmph), I should have been more careful about the increased braking distance due to the brake-issue & should have kept more distance from the vehicle in front. Totally my mistake - no two ways about it.

[aditbelw]

It was a chilly December 2003 in Nainital along with my cousin we went to savour some hot tea towards an area called Bara Patthar. While returning it was a slight downhill when a maruti van coming from opposite direction was right at the centre of the road.

While braking normally to avoid the van, I suddenly lost control over steering and brakes and the car which was an esteem was literally gliding over the road to the point where we were about to slide off the road and dive into a 100 meter drop. It was a reflector stone (used in hill stations) which the car bumped into making the vehicle swerve to opposite direction of the drop and land in a small water ditch. This all happened within a few seconds while i was trying best to get the car to stop and to steer the car ,all of which was futile.

We headed to a temple after we got hold on ourselves.

What happened?

During winters there is a very thin layer of ice which forms over the road "called PALA in local hill language". Since the layer is absolute transparent the road looks normal ,its very easy to mis judge. When braking or steering a car specially downhill even modest braking in normal speeds will make the car glide over the thin but hard ice surface. The idea is to glide the car down in first or second and use engine braking.