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-   -   Your near-miss experiences on the road (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/road-safety/42155-your-near-miss-experiences-road-66.html)

Don't. It's not just about a confrontation on the road. If they live in the area, what's to prevent them from calling their friends? What if they find out where you live? You don't want scum like that coming home. Best to react aggressively only in extreme cases (physical threat to self or family). Otherwise, ignore and "swalpa adjust maadi" :eek:

I was a super energetic, young boy who bought his first car and considered himself the king of roads. I shifted from Pune to Jaipur and was driving a MH registered car.

One day, I was returning from my office and just 200 meters from my house, at a busy junction, Our lane was waiting to move for 10 mins or so. As soon as we started moving, couple of bikers tried to cross our lane at 90 degrees. As I started moving after a long wait, I did not allow them to pass and increased my speed. They did not like it and started hitting my car and started chasing me. I being the young local, swinged my car couple of times almost hitting them, break tested couple of time. They did not give up and we reached my place.

I grew up in that locality, so when my friends saw arguing bikers, they surrounded them and were ready to beat them up. one of our neighbour who was a police SI acted as a mediator and helped diffuse the situation.

Later that night, i thought about the incident and realized what if someone would have got hit by my car and got injured, multiple lives would have got spoiled including mine.

Since that day, I have always tried to keep myself composed, never get in an argument specially when i am in a situation to harm someone. I increase the volume of the stereo and enjoy my drive.

I want to paint a slightly sadder picture about Bangalore and the areas that are mentioned above

If you see this, as you move away from the City centre, you see a clear void in the number of Police outposts. Not just police, BBMP, water supply, traffic police, everything just vaporises after the inner ring road. This has just been plain inefficient governance in the last 20+ years when these areas exploded with illegal and large corporate builders running the show.
Not enough money was earmarked for so many years (Revenue collection of state vs Bangalore alone, and tax redistribution- a topic for another day). It is not going to get any better soon.
Evidence or no evidence, probably nothing is going to happen (A few days ago, 3 cycles were stolen from our street on the same day in a matter of 1 hour. We have CCTV evidence and Photos, and yet, it’s the same, no FIR, leave the evidence, if they find them, they will return it. Also, since it was a kid, there will just be a warning)
The police station near our house is overwhelmed, they have peripheral areas to cover too. Murder, Divorce, Family disputes, Land disputes, Drugs, Illegal immigrants. The policemen are under serious pressure, overworked, ill treated and citizens don’t have any sympathy, we just give them brickbats.
Cycle theft or a road rage is like a P5, improvement. If they were to ever hire an intern, these Jiras get assigned. For now, they are working on Production downtime

A few more observations about people on road:

1) Perfectly normal people who otherwise would have never done a certain thing like getting into altercations and rage suddenly become capable of immense abuse and violence.

2) People have submitted themselves to subpar infrastructure. I mean when was the last time we demanded good roads with walkable pavements included. Visited vietnam recently and it was a walkers paradise. I can get from point A to point B without the fear of someone running over my foot.

3) Honking like my time is more important than yours. Generally, honking excessively in India means an invitation to start an altercation. So unless you are ready to finish what you started, avoid honking excessively and just glide past when there is a gap.

We claim we are descendants of very advanced civilisations. But we don't act like one. Change should happen at every level of our society for us to be worthy of our ancestors. Until then drive cautiously, avoid honking and most important of all install a DASHCAM.

Cheers! :)

This is a clear case of gang/s running their newest scam to make a quick buck. We have seen similar incidents reported in news and on TBhp too.

Two actions
- Install a dashcam.
This too can be circumvented by these goons. They ride with stole plates and if they are wearing masks, there is no way to identify them.

- Avoid honking.
I know its sounds like blaming the victim. I am writing this after giving it a thought. When we Indian's drive abroad we don't honk even when the car is at a stand still. In India we honk when we are moving!! Why?

These gangs will target you for honking, for overtaking them (being to close, going too fast), your car made contact with them or the old tricks like something is wrong with your car. There is no deterrent. The cops/ law needs to do more.

I had a similar experience, though as a pedestrian, few years ago in Bangalore. I was walking around 8:30 pm from St. Johns Woods to the Nexus mall in Koramangala on the side walk, and was talking on my phone with the phone held to my ear.

There was one guy walking towards me in the front, another two guys behind me, and the guy in front asked me for the time. I pretended I didn't hear him and kept walking when the guy behind me tapped on my shoulder, and the other one tried to grab my phone. I broke free and ran on the street, while several onlookers were watching, and the three guys kept chasing me until I reached Hosur Main Road with a lot more people, traffic, and a cop.

Luckily, I still had my phone and suffered just a punch to my back and shoulder when one of the guys hit me as I was running. Still, I wanted to make a complaint and talked to a cop who took me to the police station, and after a long wait the person in charge talked me out of filing a complaint given that I had not suffered any significant loss, and they had more serious cases to consider. The police dropped me back at my flat closer to mid-night in their jeep.

These situations can arise in any metro cities nowadays.

Few things i always observe when driving around in another state with another reg plate:
1. If I'm not having the local registration plate of that state, then very calmly i will drive with no honking at all.
2. Dashcam is set for my cars
3. Always give side to busy cars/bikes and be on the left side of the road
4. Never look in the eyes of the goon like people if observed nearby.

Same Bangalore city i use the above tricks. But if i am driving a KA registration plate (which i have for a bike and a car) then I will exactly reciprocate what others show to me. I have seen them look at the plates and ignore me thinking I'm another local goon :D

Till now this worked for me :)

I would say it was our near death experience rather than near miss!

We were on the way to Thanjavur via Chennai - Trichy highway in our Innova. The cruising speed was around 80-100kmph and the roads were quite empty. Suddenly at an intersection few kms from Ulundurpet tollgate, there was an Eeco waiting to cross the road. We were at the right lane and a Bolero pikup was traveling ahead of us by a considerable distance on the left lane right before the intersection. Only God knows what the Eeco driver thought suddenly, he cut through the Bolero, narrowly escaping him and stood still in our lane.

Had to slam the brake as hard as possible just to realize that I'm going to hit directly on them and cause severe casualty as the Eeco was fully loaded with people. Suddenly my eyes were searching for an escape way and steered to the right (There was no oncoming traffic/baricades) clearing off the Eeco and stopped half way on the opposite side's departure lane.

For almost 5mins me and my wife were totally blank and our hearts were pumping at its peak. Took an U turn and headed back to the Eeco fellow just to hear "I saw you guys coming, thought I could cross before that (no apologies though). Luckily aandavar (God) only saved us!". The ladies in the car were shouting at me without even knowing what had happened actually.

Everyone who witnessed the event were so surprised that we made it alive without a scratch. Especially the bolero guy's look said it all "are you guys still alive?"

I should thank all the stars that were in our favor to escape from the mishap that could've happened because of someone's bad decision and timing. :)

Here is a suggestion & appeal that I'd like to make:

In that incident of that day, after the ordeal was done and they went away after stealing my phone - moments later, a person in a KIA SUV came up close to my car and mentioned that he had seen the chase and the kicks to my car. He then commented that those were just jobless people, etc.

During that chase, I was in fact searching for a crowd of people, or cops on the road - where I could stop next to, hoping that that would de-escalate the chase and that more peaceable minds will prevail rather than hooliganism.

So here's my suggestion:

If you find someone in a similar circumstance, and see that a vehicle is being chased, hit or kicked - please go up and try to de-escalate the situation. Criminals usually fear escalating a chase when they see that there are people taking notice. In this too, one should me mindful of their own safety and circumstances.

Unfortunately when they are not reprimanded for such small incidents, it gives the perpetrators a newfound confidence to attempt a bigger crime, the judiciary and the state government has time and time again failed to nip incidents like this into bud, at multiple places and multiple times the police has been reluctant to act against the local goons until something big has happened, I mean OP here showed smartness by reaching to the police station which deescalated the entire situation, else the same situation is one wrong move away from converting into a murder or a SA case or a first degree assault case.


I hope OP recovers from the trauma soon, and have peaceful driving miles ahead.

Our cops really are terrible. On one hand I understand that they are understaffed, overworked, and underpaid, and that not doing anything except in the case of serious injury is a way to manage things. On the other hand, by not following up and letting these guys go without bothering to investigate, they will only encourage these street thugs to try something like this again. And the next time someone will get injured. Not registering an FIR is simply their way of getting out of what is their responsibility. Pathetic.

**** Note to Mods: I have posted this in the "Kia Seltos Review" thread as well to ensure wider reach. I am ok if Mods think it best to keep it only in one thread and remove it from the other ****

Saved by ADAS!!


Last night I had to go to the airport to pick my relatives who were arriving in a late night flight at 2AM. I had planned to leave home by 12:30 AM, I wanted to take some rest in the afternoon, however due to some or the other work I could not rest, nor did I get an opportunity later in the evening. :Frustrati I then decided to let go of sleep altogether because if I slept at around 10/11PM, I would not have got up in time (I am a very very sound sleeper).

At 12:30 AM, I left my home in GZB and took the DME. As soon as I got on, I don't know what prompted me (surely it was God), and I turned on the ACC and all 3 lane features (LKA, LDW & LFA). I was cruising all along till Akarshardham, when suddenly I felt the strong jerks in the steering and car sway towards left.

I was jolted and it didn't take long for me to realise that I had slept off. I think it was only for a very very brief period, less than half a minute I think, because I was still near Akshardham. I turned on the hazard lights and pulled over towards the side. I was in shock and totally numb. :sadface I had narrowly missed a disaster. I had fresh water with me, I washed my face thoroughly and decided to go to the breakout point just few meters ahead at the start of Yamuna bridge and have a cup of tea and think over of what just happened.

Clearly, lack of sleep had taken its toll. While I was attentive and well prepared mentally that I have to drive and won't get sleep at least for next few hours, my body failed me, even if for few seconds. Those few seconds were enough to cause irreparable damage. The only thing that saved me last night was ADAS!! If I had not turned on the lane assist features, I would have surely crashed into the median and given the speed (exactly 70 KM/Hr) my car was in, it would have been a fatal crash.

The other thing I realised is that ACC only works if there is a moving vehicle ahead, it does not work in case the barrier ahead is a stationary object, because my car had not slowed down during the near miss. (more on this in my next post)

I thanked my stars, God, and the engineers at KIA for my lucky escape and resumed by journey and drove at speed below 60 throughout. Thankfully the rest of the journey (& the return journey) was uneventful.

I will make another post on what lessons I learnt from this near-miss.

*********
DME - Delhi - Meerut Expressway
GZB - Ghaziabad
ACC - Adaptive Cruise Control
LKA - Lane Keep Assist
LDW - Lane Departure Warning
LFA - Lane Following Assist

What about AEB ? It will help you in braking against stationary obstacles.

If Front Collision Warning (FCW) and Front Collision Avoidance (FCA) are active, then they will apply emergency brake to avoid collision with any object ahead.

My point was that ACC does not apply brake if there is a stationary object ahead. I think it only works if it detects a "moving" object ahead. I did try to test it last night. But obviously it is not a fool-proof test I did, so while I am pretty sure of what I am claiming, I am not 100% sure.

ACC should detect it according to the functionality description; otherwise, it can't be used in stop-and-go traffic. I will also check. Thanks for the heads up.