[Ravindra M]

Nov.2008 : While driving on M25 Orbital Anticlockwise ( Ring Road around London ) between Junction 21 and 22, I observed a Polish registered truck driving at a constant speed on the shoulder of the highway. Instinctly I felt something wrong. To my horror, my co-passenger could see the driver dozing off while I was overtaking. I honked and honked and honked... He woke up and could realize what he was doing. I could see in my mirror he was pulling off.

[Jaizcrzy]

Its was my initial days of driving. i started reversing my car with all glasses closed and loud music, sundenly the rear wheel bumped as though it went on a speed breaker, but did not notice was reversing adn it happend second time. This when i realized something went wrong. Got down to see a bi-cycle crushed under. The owner came running with a stone in hand to hit my car. Stopped him and agreeed to get it repaired or get him a new one.

finally got rid off him with 500 bucks.

another happened on my travel to my friends marriage to Amalapuram (village in Godavari Dist in Andhra Pradesh). Did not have sleep overnight, was travelling to vizag in train. the day next had to go this place with cou[ple of my friends and wifey. Reached safe and decided headback the same night to Vizag. one our way back break oil leaked into the drum and D*$%& zero breakes. had to pump the breake pedal eight to nie time to bring the car to control. 100 km away from Vizag we were driving with atmost care. As i did not catch enough sleep a day earlier was falling asleep on the wheel. this was pulling our car off road. luckily my friend in the rear seat noticed this and hit so hard that i woke up , pulled the car had some tea and drove back safe.

real heck of travel.... thats when i promised not to do such adventures again.

[Deep Blue]

36hrs resident duty. Very busy night. As soon as I got off the hospital, had to drive down to Mangalore to meet my fiancee to give some important package. On the way back, slept off, car veered off the road. Luckily the area on the side was level with the highway. With the thud, I woke up and controlled the car, stopped. Washed my face thoroughly and slowly drove back safely(another 20kms).

[vasanthn21]

There is an amazing punch line at the end of this story!

This morning; while I was on my way to office (well, a very long way today actually, had to go with my MIL to Koramangala from Kumaraswamy Layout, from there went to Sarjapur Road to pay property tax, was upset with the clerk for taking a large amount as bribe, then drove back to Vittal Mallya Road). I was a little tired, angry on being late to office (and because an auto driver kissed my car from left side). Well, coming back to the story, I almost reached my office, was at the circle on Vittal Mallya road (opposite to KF airlines and coffee day). I was trying to go straight at the circle, there was a car to my left and an auto rickshaw joining from the road at the right side of the circle was trying to cut me off. (You know the auto guys, they move inch by inch gauging your expression to see if you will let them go). I am determined not to let such people pass and in this process I steered a bit to the left. I totally forgot about the car on my left. But thankfully, foreign object proximity indicator (read it as a scream coming from my wife seated next to me) alerted me to the proximity of the neighbor and I stopped abruptly. My wife rolled down the glass and it seems the left front door missed getting a massage from the sedan's bumper by a cm!! Thankfully nothing happened. The gentleman in the other car had his glass rolled down. I said, "Sorry", and he said "You are a team BHP member and you drive like this"!!!!!! (I have team-BHP stickers on all 4 sides of my car hoping someone will spot me, sadly no one has posted spotting me till date).

[sbraj]

Unexpected sound -
I am very particular about sounds that come from the car. I tend to observe any unusal sound coming from the car. While coming back home from a long drive, on the highway, someone on the back seat rolled down the rear windshield behind me while a/c was on. I was surprised by the sudden sound of air gushing in. I turned my head to look back, resulting in losing direction on steering and the car slid off the tarmac on to the shoulder. Car went over a heap of earth and was in mid air for a split second before landing. No damages. Looking back, I think I probably turned to see because there was no other vehicle in sight for a long distance. Probably I thought it was safe to turn back and look.

Billboard -
After crossing a signal, I was accelerating and for a moment looked at a billboard. By the time, I had looked back on to the vehicle in front of me, it had stopped, and I was accelerating. I hit the brakes, and immediately looked at the rear view mirror to see if I am being hit. Luckily, no damages again. I keep wondering why I looked at the billboard, for it had nothing spectacular, if you know what I mean.

Usually the concentration lapse happens on the stretches which I think the safest. The ones that I drive day in and day out. The ones that I think are probably the least effort taking. May be on such roads, the guards are lowered.

[highwaylover]

Once i was driving at a good 65-70 kmph and overtook a truck and then cut into his lane too soon. Thud!!! one of the rear lights of my car went flying

Never made that mistake again.

[AbdulRahmanM]

Today i had a lapse, i was in a hurry to start to office, hence i reversed my car very fast, and my LRVM hit my bike's handle and about 35% of the glass broke. I have used a transparent tape to hold it as of now. Can the glass alone be changed in Indica LRVM or we need to change the whole set?

[Superleggera]

Well, this incident happened last month in one of the local roads of Boston. I had to take a cardboard box to office and I had kept it in rear of my car on the previous night. The next morning when I started, I totally forgot about the box started driving. Barely after 2 miles, I heard a rattling noise from rear and lost my concentration and turned back to see the source of the noise forgetting the box. In few seconds, the car in front of me braked hard as one car suddenly joined the road, I could not stop as there was a little bit of snow on the road. Result - Damaged front bumper, grille and few parts that holds up the right headlight. The body shop quoted $2000 - for which I had to shell out $500 as my insurance deductible.

[rajushank84]

Once when standing at a signal there were many vehicles in front of me. After the light turned green, all the vehicles started moving ahead in a rush - including me.

I didnt notice one bike guy standing to my extreme left, just in front of my car. He was talking on his cellphone and hadnt noticed that the signal had turned green.

I had just started moving forward when BANG. He fell down from the bike.

I felt so bad. Got down from the car, picked up his bike and cellphone, apologized profusely. He just said "paathu sir..." (be careful sir) and left. No damage to him or his bike.

[sumobom4]

Great to see so many T-BHPians narrating their incidents. I am sure this will help us all learn from them and become better drivers. Well, here are my anecdotes. Have listed them all as far as I remember.

In 2003, only a few months after getting my license, I was driving my Dad's new M800 which was but a month old. Now, I had learnt my driving on my Dad's good old Premier Padmini. Compared to that, the 800 was like a go kart. I was thoroughly enjoying myself when I naively decided to execute a Z-manoeuvre between a slow moving taxi in front of me and a Sumo to my right, slightly behind me. BANG! The Sumo hit my rear right door and I felt the car start to spin. To this day, I have no idea which way I turned the steering, but I managed to arrest the spin and regain control. The Sumo simply sped away nonchalantly! I completely agree that it was my fault and that the stupid stunt I attempted was completely uncalled for. But I can't help but feel shortchanged. All it needed on the Sumo driver's part was a momentous lifiting of the foot from the accelerator. I have done that many times when someone has cut into my path.

This next one happened recently last summer when I was home for summer internship. I was driving Scarlette (Dad's Swift) and trying to get past a slow taxi. He refused to give way and frustrated, I tried to overtake him from the left. There was a BEST bus in the left lane waiting at a stop. I glanced in my RHS ORVM and saw that the taxi driver had suddenly accelerated. Hence, I had to hold the left lane that much bit longer to have enough distance to rejoin the right lane. When I finally swerved right, I heard a sharp crack from the LHS. My LHS ORVM had clipped the BEST bus and was now hanging useless on the side. :( My impatience had cost Scarlette her ear!

Looks like both my car incidents involved stupid overtaking manoeuvres from the left trying to execute Z's. The only other incident I recall was on my bike. This was in Jan this year in Bhubaneswar where I was studying in MBA. I was on my Honda Unicorn at a junction near Bhubaneswar Club at pole position. The signal was switched and traffic was directed manually by the lone cop. Now this junction is quite big and the free area in the centre is quite large. The cop signalled my side to go, so I let her rip! Suddenly, a Verna came very very fast from the road on the right and to my horror, the cop promptly stopped my side and asked the Verna to go through. I had no choice but to accelerate as hard as possible and hope for the best!

[rohanjf]

While driving back from Durban to Johannesburg last weekend, I was doing 160 kmph constantly in 120 kmph zone at around 8 PM (which means, pitch dark). I forgot to slow down at an approaching toll booth as I was half asleep. But when I saw a flash, I was wide awake. It was an automatic camera. Now waiting for the ticket to arrive. I am hoping that they send a photo too, because that would be the only photo I would have from the trip (because I have no camera of my own)!

Another incident: from my engineering days in Manipal. I was riding on my bike (without helmet, of course, because it was 2001). The road was dug up across. A car came quite fast from opposite side and thanks to that, there was dust all over the place. So I closed my eyes to avoid the dust. Next thing I remember is getting out of the ditch. They hadn't covered the whole dug up part, but only on the opposite side!!

[AutoBond]

Yes, when it comes to Bangalore road, you will required to be utmost conscious of driving.

I had this experience couple of month back driving on one of the busiest roads in Bangalore. We had a red signal near the junction and I was driving towards the extreme right just reaching the zebra crossing line before the signal. My concentration was on the right as I was looking for an address (1st mistake) and I was moving my car slowly towards the junction not looking in the front (2nd mistake). Within no seconds, I heard a thud sound and also a sudden jerk. I then realized that this stupid guy on the left, who was all the time parking his 800 only started to take a right and wanted to be in front of my car before before the signal turns green .

It was just 20 days old for my i20 and there comes the first scar on her near the left bumper area. My mistake was that I should have been extra cautious to let this not happen and this stupid guy tries to prove he is not wrong .
When driving you better concentrate on one job and thats driving else such will be consequences.

[abhaymagal]

Happened a few years ago.We had bought out new Alto and set off for the first long drive..to Mantralayam in Andhra.
This incident happened on the Bangalore Hyderabad highway.
I Was too excited driving the new car and with all family members chitchatting, I'd actually lost concentration on the road to be frank. . It was the days wen the broadening of highway was in its initial stages. Driving at about 110kph, I hardly noticed an Inspection Jeep of the Highway authority stop suddenly.Mistake not completely mine though, as the brake lamps of the Jeep were not functional.
Scared of banging into the jeep, took a sudden turn towards the middle of the road..and almost missed by a whisker the oncoming traffic: a scorpio followed by a container truck

[vishnurp99]

My lapse of concentration cost my dad 2000 Rs in around 2002. That was the time when i was in engineering Second year and we had just brought the palio. I used to go to drop my mother to hospital(she is a doc) and then would take a roundabout route to return to my house so that i have a good drive. That day i decided to take a route which went by the police training college. There is a circle just by this college which gets very crowded and it's kind of make your own rules kind of crossing. I was just waiting on this circle when a BMW just passed me on the other road. Those days a BMW in TVM was quite rare and i turned my head to see the car and by mistake i released the clutch of my palio. The palio just went and shunted a m800 in front which was also waiting on the circle. Seemed like a minor collision to me but i got out and saw that my palio just had few scratches on the bumper and i was a bit relieved. However the m800 was a different story. The entire tail lamp cluster/bumper was damaged and to make matters worse a DySP who apparently worked at the training college got out of the 800 and the poor guy also seemed quite shocked on seeing the damage to his car. I told him that it was my mistake and i could pay for the damage and all. called up my dad who arrived and took the damaged car to a local service and got the quote which was about 2000 Rs and parted on good terms with that Dysp.

[unoczar]

Originally Posted by GTO

Lesson learnt. No rest = No highway driving. Under any circumstances.

Same thing happened to me while coming back from my north trip, but here i crossed the divider and landed up on the wrong side with 2 broken alloys and 3 non usable tyres! Horrific experience! but no injuries...

link: http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...l-back-15.html