[Serenity_Nimble]

Rented a Hyundai Sonata AT in Minneapolis at 01:00 in the morning and drove towards Indianapolis(a 10 hr drive). Had less sleep the previous and none that night too. Despite having another driver friend beside me , I did not wake him us(yes....all 4 passenger friends were snoring n sleeping tempting my dowsy self). The road was long, dark lonely and mesmerizing. Lulled me to steal a fews winks. And all of a sudden, with the needle in the speedo pointing at 80mph and awakened of my stupor , I found the Sonata had skipped a couple of lanes without my knowledge. Devil knows and I think maybe me too , what all might have happened if the Sonata had veered even further and embraced the oncoming traffic. I pulled over , washed my face , stretched myself , ate a few snacks and resumed the journey. Caught myself startingt to doze off again and an hour later, stopped and reluctantly gave the driver's seat to my friend conceding defeat to drowsiness.
Lesson learnt : If drowsiness attacks you even once, stop driving , take a nap and resume driving after you are refreshed.

[WhiteKnight]

This happend more than a decade back, when I was in my teens (without license!).

We were returing after a long trip to Calicut to visit bunch of relatives, in a MM Commander. As usual, I wanted to have the whole fun, so at the driver's seat. After wading through Trichur town, we were going to enter NH 47. I was really tired of standing on the clutch on stop-go traffic.

At the junction we have to turn right on NH 47 to head to Kochi. My guru, my uncle, sitting on the passenger side said "This side is okay", and as if in a dream, I took the jeep forward. Next moment!!!! A screetching sound (or was it a cry from second row?) and air-horn blowing me off the seat. I am staring at headlights of a bus, so close that I can touch those.

Lucky me, the bus was so close, that I couldn't see its driver. But, I didn't have flaps to close my ears which were more than filled with #@*(^$.

Lesson learnt- Seeing is believing. After that I never trust what others' say while I drive. Thank god, I still can!

[deepakhon]

3 years back, South End Circle, Bangalore:

My Palio was behind a Doc's Uno. The Doc's driver was driving his car. We were in the right most lane and were approaching the signal, which had just turned red. Uno stopped and I was around 15-20m behind him, approaching to stop. Suddenly, a Santro guy from my left lane comes into my lane and goes off to his lane. I get disturbed by that and give him a quick glance and by the time I look straight, I managed to rear end the Uno. I exchanged my business card with the Doc and headed straight to my office. The Doc came up with the receipt for the money he had spent and I paid him back. Done deal.

Damage to the Uno? Headlights smashed, and a dent to its rear bumper. Damage to my Palio? Surprisingly none. Not even a scratch.

Moral of the story: Keep an eye on whom you are following. Dont get distracted by petty things while driving.

[finneyp]

Originally Posted by deepakhon

Damage to the Uno? Headlights smashed, and a dent to its rear bumper.

Deepak, you hit the Uno at the rear, right?
Then how come the headlights smashed? I guess its a typo & should be taillights!

[kpbhatt]

During my engg days -- was ragged on the second day of college and was forced to drive a bike (didnt know driving then- i did try telling this to the seniors but they wont listen) - I had only known @ accelerator and not @ gear -- so gave it a hard acceleration and let it go -- the bike went ahead without me and went and hit a tree - -- the seniors of college respected me from that day on and never ragged me again

moral of the story -- know driving or no driving

[Surprise]

I have been to a marriage function last evening. Parked the car on an empty open space on the main road and walked to the hall just few meters inside the cut road. Could not take the car inside as the street was bit narrow with two wheelers parked on either side.

Since my aged uncle wanted me to drop him in the railway station, back to the car, turned it and parked just in front of the street.

To make way for an auto coming in the opposite direction, I had swerved to the extreme left getting off from the road to allow him to pass. He stood few meters away from me to indicate that he wanted to get into the street which entrance was by now completely blocked by me.

I have to either move forward or reverse & I choose to reverse in order to stay in vision for my uncle, who is walking towards the car. I engaged the reverse gear, release the clutch just to move few steps backwards to make the way clear for the auto. Next moment I bumped my car onto the lamppost.

How did I miss it? Damages - Broken bumper + Broken heart

This minor accident have been made after almost 20k kms of driving without any such incidents. I have to start from Zero all over again

1. Do you have any experience where you had bumped your car or any others car due to absolute error from your side. If you have many experiences like that, please do post the latest one

2. What's the maximum kms (approximate) you covered between any two accidents due to absolute negligence from your side

Share your experiences

[prince_pervez]

If this is a thread for lapse in concentration then here are my 2 cents.
Last December I was doing Kolhapur - Bengaluru.
Stretch: Chitradurga to Tumkur (B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L)

Some 1 km ahead I could see a KSRTC bus attempting a
'U' turn at the intersection. Of the 11 odd years of driving experience
I knew the bus would complete its turn and I would comfortably overtake it later. So I never bothered to brake. I looked at my left to check
whether wifey had her seat belts on (she was sleeping, front seat). Checked the speedo meter. It was between 120 -130. Then it happened
I looked towards the road and I was shocked to the point of a freeze.
The KSRTC bus was so loooooooong that it could not complete the
'U' turn in one atempt. At this point, it was stationery in the middle of the road horizontally.

I was on the right lane and an Innova on the left just behind me. I did not know what to do except brake hard with the bus just a few hundred meters ahead of me. I braked till I could brake no more. I removed the foot off the brake pedal swerved to the right (to get to the opposite lane via the intersection just in case.) I pumped and pumped the brakes till I stopped just a few feet away from the bus' rear tyre. I reversed and took a deep breath. Wifey did not know what happened before the hard braking sequence, except that a big bus was in front of her.
I looked back at the innova and the driver was full of disgust for the bus driver.

If it wasn't for God, there would have been a thread on T-BHP on this or a snap in the "Accident Pics - India" thread.

By the way I was driving a stock Zen. I maxed 155kmph on NH4.
Will post the snap if anyone is interested.

Warm Regards,
Pervez Patel.

[esteem_lover]

I have let my eyes wander sometimes, but have never hit anything as a result.

[deadguy25]

Originally Posted by prince_pervez

By the way I was driving a stock Zen. I maxed 155kmph on NH4.
Will post the snap if anyone is interested.

Warm Regards,
Pervez Patel.

please post the pic.

[Rajesh Rawal]

Not sure if this fits here ! whenever we pass any temple while driving we tend to look towards it to say our hi and hellos to the almighty!

maybe for 2-3 seconds that results in concentration over lapse!

luckily havent bumped into anyone doing that ,but yes i know its not a good practice..

[kippu]

i had mine the second day of picking up the car , going in the busy streets at peak time and i turned onto a main road in my town and the sun was angling straight into my eyes and all that traffic made me have a momentary lapse on concentration and bang into an autorickshaw who was parked middle of the road ,

damages bent front bender in the left side , decided not to fix it till i accumulate more of them , but fortunately a year has passed and still no scratches or dents

[prince_pervez]

Originally Posted by deadguy25

please post the pic.

There you go. 5-6 seconds after that I was literally touching 160.

Here is the link of the NH4 journey.

YouTube - NH4

[hrag]

Originally Posted by deepakhon

Moral of the story: Keep an eye on whom you are following. Dont get distracted by petty things while driving.

Yes, pretty things are better than petty things.

[amohit]

Well, this happened a few years ago. I was riding on my bike somewhere near JNC, koromangala and rear ended a middle aged uncle. Both of us were busy looking somewhere else (it was noon and college had just got over).
No damages. No fights. both of us knew what we were doing.
Lessons learnt: None. I still take my chances

Regards,

[hondatoyotafan]

Originally Posted by Serenity_Nimble

Rented a Hyundai Sonata AT in Minneapolis at 01:00 in the morning and drove towards Indianapolis(a 10 hr drive). Had less sleep the previous and none that night too. Despite having another driver friend beside me , I did not wake him us(yes....all 4 passenger friends were snoring n sleeping tempting my dowsy self). The road was long, dark lonely and mesmerizing. Lulled me to steal a fews winks. And all of a sudden, with the needle in the speedo pointing at 80mph and awakened of my stupor , I found the Sonata had skipped a couple of lanes without my knowledge. Devil knows and I think maybe me too , what all might have happened if the Sonata had veered even further and embraced the oncoming traffic. I pulled over , washed my face , stretched myself , ate a few snacks and resumed the journey. Caught myself startingt to doze off again and an hour later, stopped and reluctantly gave the driver's seat to my friend conceding defeat to drowsiness.
Lesson learnt : If drowsiness attacks you even once, stop driving , take a nap and resume driving after you are refreshed.

I guess highway hypnosis occurs to anyone who has driven in the us,Once i was travelling late in the night from austin to dallas on I-35.Almost near waxahachie early in the morning at 4am,the road was clear and everything was silent except the engine and the relentless hum of the wheels,I dozed off without my knowledge and the next thing i realized when i woke up was i was dangerously close to an ontario reg. car and she was honking relentlessly to wake me up and i was maybe 1 ft away from collision when i finally woke up.