[srishiva]

The newspapers did say that the Bus was on the wrong side. Everyone in the Bus (including passengers) had run off !
This particular place was even more notorious before because it was a curve. They have straightened it out now by having the road go through the lake.

[ggkg]

Since sumo guys are mostly dead nothing much will come out of enquiry even if one is conducted fairly and professionally.

Bus and lorry drivers have an extra incentive to be reckless because nothing much happens to them even in a crash of this magnitude, unless they collide with another bus. So they care a damn about smaller vehicles when overtaking . Many of them drive drunk and sometimes without even license or insurance.

The law has to be extra strict and policemen who have to do fake encounter killings of hardened criminals should follow similar tactics until some discipline is brought into system. First target should be delhi private bus drivers. Or we will continue to have our roads as the most effective and successful population control measure.

[metropolis]

The accident is horrible......Hope the souls of the departed may rest in peace.
Night driving is really fatal sometimes as 90% of the driving is just on your own sense.

[skandyhere]

the root cause is no mystery, yet it's the same 'it-wont-happen-to-me' syndrome at work. the root cause is the slew of assumptions we drive under -

i'm in control. i can stop at very short notice
my vehicle will obey my every whim faithfully
i'm not going too fast
there's no uncalculated element - the roads are perfect, other drivers are perfect, their vehicles are perfect too, nobody will pop onto the road, no animals barge in, i can see everything, etc.
i can overtake now - although it's a blind corner, im fast enough to come out in a second.
i'm sure there's noone in my lane coming from the opposite direction at the corner
i need to beat my own record for speed or time.


just these two elements - fast driving, overtaking at blind corners/having another vehicle come on to you while overtaking from the opposite direction cause all the accidents you know of.

[rks]

Originally Posted by ggkg

If the bus is indeed wrong, what can the sumo guy do? veer to the wrong lane and hope nothing else crashes on to him? Veer to left and fall into ditch/open land? Or just stop vehicle and hope impact of crash is minimised? All scary options...but perhaps veering left and leaving the road and crashing into some tree may have been the best option, provided the sumo is doing reasonable speed and is able to slow down a bit atleast.

It looks like the bus was on the wrong side and maybe trying to overtake. The Sumo driver apparently did not react at all and went head-on into the bus. I agree he could have slowed down and swerved to the left; there was some space for him to do that as seen from the picture. But this happened at midnight, and it is always more difficult to judge distances, speeds and road width at night; possibly the Sumo driver was blinded by the headlights of the bus.

I have always maintained that SUVs are not all that safe on our narrow roads and this accident is another example. A small car might have dodged the bus by braking and swerving left, but it is pretty difficult to do that in a vehicle like Sumo. The overloading will only make matters worse by increasing the braking distance and making the steering response more sluggish.

[ggkg]

Wonder if the Sumo had been keeping reasonable speed (60kmph or thereabouts) it could have done something about it. Given it is an unsafe vehicle built to third world standards for a third world price, without even seat belts etc., that is the sane thing to do.

Why did the bus driver come into wrong lane - most likely to overtake someone.

Unless there is a deep plunge to the left like it is in ghat sections, usually the vehicle can get off the road and stop/crash at low speed into some obstacle provided it is also not being driven like a maniac. At lower speeds it would have also given the bus driver more time to get back into lane unless he was drunk or suicidal or going way too fast even for that to be done...but chances are higher and all you need is a split second.

Given that the Sumo was overloaded like crazy, I suspect it was also driven irresponsibly.

Moral of the story - our speed limits are low but are there for good reason - stick to them unless really really safe to do so. Which means a straight stretch of clear visibility, center median of steel/concrete, access control on both sides etc. etc. which applies to 0.01% of our roads.

[ggkg]

Originally Posted by rks

The overloading will only make matters worse by increasing the braking distance and making the steering response more sluggish.

Correct..plus these vehicles are maintained badly. They run almost 10000km every month, even on a conservative basis. That would mean a engine oil change monthly, transmission, brake and other checks fortnightly, tyre change almost thrice a year etc. etc. if you go by manf. recommended gaps. I would be really surprised if most vehicles stick to anything close to this. Heck they usually drive without insurance!

[vivekiny2k]

Originally Posted by ravibhat

According to Hindu astrology Amvasya is the day where people don't travel for long journey no new important work they would like to do.

Although I don't trust this tradition much I somehow feel our Hindu Pandits have made this based on their experience and there is some good scientific reason behind this.

let me guess, in old times we did not have headlights snd it was terribly dark on amavasya nights.

I have had trips to my ancestral village and I know that on dark nights even walking for a small distance is not possible without torches in each person's hand.

[RedOne]

I drove through this road on Sunday morning and remember seeing a badly damaged Sumo near Chitradurga, though not sure it is this same one. The section between Hubli and Chitradurga frequently had the 4 lane becoming 2 lanes as the other side was not complete. In all cases, there were no warning signs to expect oncoming traffic.

So I do not think the bus driver was at fault, all traffic could have been on the "wrong" side due to absence of 4 lanes and the Sumo driver just didn't know/expect a bus to come at him.

Sad, but a good indication of our road system, improved as it is from what it was few years back.

Gears,
Red-One.

[akroy]

You are right RedOne, Also the Sumo/Indicas do some real reckless speeding in these stretches....From Chitradurga to Ranibennur there are lots of lane changing so u have to be at 60kmph speed zone specially with so many people on board (which I doubt this fellow was!!!)

Abhi

[srishiva]

The section between Chitradurga and Davanagere is horrific. The golden quadrilateral has been completely mess here. There are lot of places where the road becomes two way from having four lanes.

There are no directions, marking etc., to warn you. About two months ago at night 8.00 p.m I couldn't keep up with all these changes and didn't move back correctly when the road changed to 4 lanes. But everyone else following me (an ambulance was just behind me) just continued with me.

Since everyone would know about this, no one drives really fast on this stretch.

What I heard from my friend who used this road and saw this accident was that the Sumo could have moved to the left easily. But for some reason it didn't. Maybe he wanted to teach the bus driver a lesson by making him stop!

[akroy]

Originally Posted by srishiva

What I heard from my friend who used this road and saw this accident was that the Sumo could have moved to the left easily. But for some reason it didn't. Maybe he wanted to teach the bus driver a lesson by making him stop!

Now he will learn the chapter from heaven !!!
I have seen exactly similar attitudes of this cabbie drivers, they try to act too smart...

Abhi

[msdivy]

Originally Posted by akroy

Now he will learn the chapter from heaven !!!
I have seen exactly similar attitudes of this cabbie drivers, they try to act too smart...

Abhi

By the definition of 'teaching a lesson', wasn't the bus driver smarter in this case? Unfortunately the cab driver got his final lesson. Wish the roads are clear of these teachers.

[finneyp]

We don't know the exact cause of this mishap, but as Abhijit most of the Cabbies in Blore act very smart, they care a damn for other road users, they won't budge a bit for others to pass by, they will recklessly overtake from left or right and cut infront of you, and we have to slam brakes to avoid a mishap!
Wish I had a small gun to shoot at their tyres!

[sri]

Originally Posted by RedOne

I drove through this road on Sunday morning and remember seeing a badly damaged Sumo near Chitradurga, though not sure it is this same one. The section between Hubli and Chitradurga frequently had the 4 lane becoming 2 lanes as the other side was not complete. In all cases, there were no warning signs to expect oncoming traffic.

So I do not think the bus driver was at fault, all traffic could have been on the "wrong" side due to absence of 4 lanes and the Sumo driver just didn't know/expect a bus to come at him.

Sad, but a good indication of our road system, improved as it is from what it was few years back.

Gears,
Red-One.

This is very important, i had similar experience on blr-mysore highway last years, when it was just nearing completion. Vehicles used to come on the wrongside but they would not have put the headlights or indicators and especially where the road had curves its very difficult to say if a bus is coming on your lane or in its own left lane and by the time you realize it they are pretty close to you. i almost banged into one such bus.