[Capri89]

Originally Posted by The Rationalist

https://Youtu.be/odQc0MzPGSY?feature=shared

A big thanks for you gentleman, you were raised well.

No doubt a very thoughtful action on the gentleman's part.
However, that vehicle zoomed past and shouldn't have reversed the way it did. It did increase the risk element.
Rather, it should have halted wherever it did and the gentleman should have run and taken care of the kid.

[balenoed_]

Originally Posted by Capri89

Rather, it should have halted wherever it did and the gentleman should have run and taken care of the kid.

It is quite easy to judge and say one should have done that and this. However, in reality, on the ground, things and mindset will be different and he may not have all those time and mind to decide on how to approach rather than just do what he thinks at the moment.

[binand]

Originally Posted by Capri89

However, that vehicle zoomed past and shouldn't have reversed the way it did. It did increase the risk element.

Originally Posted by balenoed_

It is quite easy to judge and say one should have done that and this.

Indeed. We should also understand that the driver had a better view and sense of the risk involved in reversing. Our only clue is that no vehicle passed from right to left in the video for the entire duration the vehicle reversed, the passenger got out, picked the kid and approached the home.

Let us appreciate an act of kindness that saved a little child.

Originally Posted by The Rationalist

There are millions who are unable to have kids and then there are people like these!

As per media reports - the child and his mother live alone in the house. The child ran out of the house when the mother's attention wavered momentarily. Something I suppose that will give her nightmares for the rest of her life.

[MT_Hyderabad]

Originally Posted by Capri89

No doubt a very thoughtful action on the gentleman's part.
However, that vehicle zoomed past and shouldn't have reversed the way it did. It did increase the risk element.
Rather, it should have halted wherever it did and the gentleman should have run and taken care of the kid.

Originally Posted by balenoed_

It is quite easy to judge and say one should have done that and this. However, in reality, on the ground, things and mindset will be different and he may not have all those time and mind to decide on how to approach rather than just do what he thinks at the moment.

The question to ask here is, who spotted the child and took the decision to help him/her?

1. Driver.
He spotted the child, stopped at a distance, but as the time was running short, reversed the car and asked the passenger to get the child to safety.
If he would have stopped the car and tried to get out himself without reversing, it would have taken longer time, as he cannot just open his door and run on a fast moving highway.

2. Passenger.
If the passenger saw the child, he would have been looking out towards the child when the car was reversing, which he wasn't.

Hence, driver saw the child, reversed and asked the passenger to take him to safety.
There was no other way he could have helped the child in the minimum time possible.

If you see the video is slow motion with zoom on the car, you will see what I am trying to say. You can see the driver instructing the clueless passenger.

[naveen.raju]

Originally Posted by MT_Hyderabad

The question to ask here is, who spotted the child and took the decision to help him/her?

This video says it all. The driver saw the kid first.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4MI9p8MIqc

[FORTified]

Originally Posted by Capri89

No doubt a very thoughtful action on the gentleman's part.
However, that vehicle zoomed past and shouldn't have reversed the way it did. It did increase the risk element.
Rather, it should have halted wherever it did and the gentleman should have run and taken care of the kid.

Reversing is the best option here.
Had he not done that, as he would have stopped at a distance and the passenger would have to get down and walk/run back, it would have taken a few moments and the kid would have come onto the road and there are vehicles.

I would have reversed too.

[Street_Smart]

Originally Posted by FORTified

Reversing is the best option here.
Had he not done that, as he would have stopped at a distance and the passenger would have to get down and walk/run back, it would have taken a few moments and the kid would have come onto the road and there are vehicles.

I would have reversed too.

I beg to differ here and agree with @Capri89. Reversing on an active highway is never a wise option. In this case, luckily there were no vehicles following for those few seconds. Else, things would have been different, is my guess.

Instead, pulling off to the road shoulder and running backwards probably shouting to capture the attention of the child and/or waving off your hands to alert the oncoming vehicles would have been a safer option. But then, the situation at hand would have not left enough seconds for one to evaluate options.

[MT_Hyderabad]

Originally Posted by Street_Smart

Instead, pulling off to the road shoulder and running backwards probably shouting to capture the attention of the child and/or waving off your hands to alert the oncoming vehicles would have been a safer option. But then, the situation at hand would have not left enough seconds for one to evaluate options.

I believe that what was done, was the best option. There are many factors like the traffic around, Kerala roads, driving ethics in the area etc etc.

If he would have followed your advice, may be the child would have got scared and ran towards the road! Not every child like stranger running and shouting at them.

See, how we can find fault in just about anything :-)

[IAmGroot]

Originally Posted by The Rationalist

That baby was extremely lucky, hope the stupid parent have learnt a lesson. There are millions who are unable to have kids and then there are people like these! A big thanks for you gentleman, you were raised well.

Good presence of mind and empathy. As a parent of small kids this is a nightmare scenario.

People have been mistaken for child kidnappers. Imagine the child screaming on a stranger trying to hold you and running towards the house. The mother come out and see's a car with door open. No good deed goes unpunished.

[DasAuto1985]

The few comments above kind of sum up how cynical we have become as a society. Instead of finding something good even if bad things happen, we have become the other way around. The driver did the smartest thing possible. One major factor we are not taking into consideration is that we were not there, the driver was. Not fair to judge him at all

[SamDiablo]

Originally Posted by DasAuto1985

The few comments above kind of sum up how cynical we have become as a society. Instead of finding something good even if bad things happen, we have become the other way around. The driver did the smartest thing possible. One major factor we are not taking into consideration is that we were not there, the driver was. Not fair to judge him at all

Very true. One thing we all know after the incident is that intentions of the driver were good. This is the most important part. He didn't had luxury of doing analysis in hindsight. I'm sure if we all sit with pen and paper or PowerPoint and we can come up with multiple options, with pros and cons. Driver did best what he could in that situation and the outcome was good.

[aviator1101]

Originally Posted by Capri89

No doubt a very thoughtful action on the gentleman's part.
However, that vehicle zoomed past and shouldn't have reversed the way it did. It did increase the risk element.

Originally Posted by Street_Smart

I beg to differ here and agree with @Capri89. Reversing on an active highway is never a wise option. In this case, luckily there were no vehicles following for those few seconds. Else, things would have been different, is my guess.

It is nice that you have brought out the best solution in the given case. But let's not criticize the good act here, but appreciate what the driver and his passenger could do on the spur of the moment and not waste time in working out ideal solutions. It is indeed lucky that it worked for them. Maybe Providence had it's hand upon them.

Also, it is a lesson for parents of toddlers staying close to roads and highways without guard rail or fencing. Leaving gates and doors open and an unattended toddler is perfect recipe for inviting trouble to your home.

What's best is what it worked out for everyone that day and that situation. Everyone might not be that lucky the other day.

[voldemort]

That's our Honda City. Two trees fell on about 6 cars around it . Luckily, our car wasn't affected.

The 2nd car from the right is an Ecosport whose front windshield was shattered slightly (there's a hole towards the bottom; the entire windshield has to be replaced). To the left of the Ecosport (3rd car from the right) was an i20; although it looks bad, I don't think he sustained heavy damage, because I think I saw that same car at a different portion of the lot later, and there weren't anything obviously wrong. I might have seen a different car though.

This happened at Smart City, Kochi, in the evening of November 10 (yesterday). There were insane rains with incredible winds after 4 pm. I've never seen anything like it before. Various damages (broken trees, broken power lines etc) were reported from various parts of the city.

I'm going to see if I can get underground parking in my building, to avoid this kind of situation.

On a somewhat positive note, the fix for a leak problem that was done last week seems to have worked (whole another story, which I'll post on the Honda City thread at some point).

[shady]

This event occurred on Nov 16th morning at around 9am on ORR in front of Manyata park, Bangalore when I was going to office on my bike.

A guy on a bike (let's call him Mr.D for dumb) is riding next to a lady on a Dio and he's shouting at her. He's been following and shouting at her from the end of Veeranapalya flyover. This goes on for about 200 metres and the guy tries to block the lady. She dodges one attempt he then proceeds to overtake her and applies brakes all of a sudden and she ends up falling in the middle lane and rush hour traffic comes to a halt.

What happens next was just a series of near misses. A Dominar guy was right behind the lady who fell, stopped in time, I'm behind the Dominar guy and I stopped in time. An activa behind me hits my exhaust and nearly falls. Beside the Activa guy on the right a middle aged gentleman in a Kia stops in time without hitting anyone. To my left an Innova just missed hitting me and stopped beside my left leg.

And Mr.D continues to argue with the lady (for whatever reason) whom he made to fall down. Uncle from the Kia and a few more people get down and start questioning the guy. Mr.D starts to shout at everyone in filmi style. Then a few other people started raising their voice at him. Mr.D realizing he was outnumbered scoots from there. Meanwhile the lady has already scooted off in that melee.

This guy endangered so many people, including himself, that day for some personal issue of his and he did all of this without even a helmet. Luckily it was slow moving traffic and there were only near misses. Unfortunately I couldn't get a picture of this dodo or his bike number.

You never know where such imbeciles would pop out from on the road.

[GTX+]

On Sunday, 26th Nov, around 6PM, my wife got a call from the cook that she is unwell and won't be coming. As is the norm, I got up, started making tea and asked my wife & son if we should order to go out. Unanimous decision was to go out and have fresh hot meal.

We decided to go at a place we have not been so far, so the next couple of hours I kept looking and in the end we could not decide on a good place (normal!) which was not too near, not too far, never visited etc. Disappointed, we decided to go to our usual fav nearby restaurant.

Around 9PM, don't know what got into my wife and she roared, "Lets go to that airplane restaurant in Murthal" (we had once driven by and decided to visit some day). In my mind, I was like "Does she even realise how far that is from our house?". Anyway, knowing it was useless to argue when she roared like that, we all quickly got ready and left.

To cut the long story short, we took the DME till the spur which joins the EPE which then connects you to the GT road. Last time I drove on EPE (it was my first time), I was horror struck at the quality of the road. It was so uneven and with numerous potholes. Driving on it was a nightmare. Anyway, I was on it again, this time in my new car (secretly worried), but was pleasantly surprised that the quality has been improved by leaps and bound. Fresh coating was clearly visible (even in night) at numerous places, especially start and end of small bridges, evening up the surface. I did not find a single pothole.

However, this is where, sometimes, laziness or common sense takes a hit. At all such places the workers had placed cones in dozens and did not remove them. At many places, the trucks ran straight through them, not bothering about them getting damaged or the shock the drivers of the small vehicle behind them when suddenly spotting a cone spring up underneath the truck. This happened to me on the first instance itself. Luckily, I was driving at around 60 KM/Hr and could easily steer clear.

However, the adventure and my luck wasn't over yet. Half-way through, after many such cone coasters, we finally settled into a nice cruise in the right most lane and I could see couple of trucks up ahead in the middle and left late respectively. I was cruising along at a sedate 70 KM/Hr, with no intention of overtaking, when suddenly couple of cows jumped from the middle to the right lane (on seeing the truck come straight at them).

Thank god I wasn't at a higher speed, was completely focused at the road ahead, did not panic on suddenly seeing couple of quadrupeds in the middle of my path and there was no other vehicle behind me. I was able to brake in time, steer left and slowly moved ahead thanking God and my stars. My wife and son went in shock land and it took a while for them to find their bearings.

Rest of the journey was eventless. We had a nice meal in the "Hawai Adda" restaurant. Not in a mood for any further adventures (it was well past midnight), we decided to take the road via Delhi. Good decision as the road were almost empty and we could cruise through and were joined by few bikers, on their high end bikes, enjoying their rides in the empty streets of Delhi.

DME: Delhi - Meerut Expressway
EPE: Eastern Peripheral Expressway
GT Road: Grand Trunk Road