[mclaren1885]

Yes , u guys heard it right !!!!

Date : 14th jan 2006 ..

Accident details : Psycho and myself were returning from a friends place after attending a puja .. Get onto the K.R.Puram cable bridge heading towards Indiranagar ..
Half way down the bridge , we see a truck in the left lane doing speeds of approx 40 km/hr .. As the entire right lane seemed rather empty we moved in for the overtaking .. And then all caution was thrown to the winds .. Evidently, some two wheeler which was right ahead of the truck stalled or something and as we were half way into overtaking the truck , the truck driver decided to cut across to save the biker ..


I a moment ago had seen the entire right lane EMPTY and within a split second i could see the front half of the truck blocking the right lane sideways .. We ran out of raod and had to brake hard ..


Too late , we were too close to the truck and contact was made .. Left fender of the car hit the right rear tyre of the truck and the car took off .. Yes literally took off , being squeezed in btwn the truck and the divider ..


Withing no time that we had hit the truck i could feel we were air borne completely .. The car swerved to the right as in the drivers door facing northwards and hit a light pole affixed on the divider .. The impact was so hard that i felt each of my bones rattle , and within no time i felt the car making a complete turn around the pole .. Still the car being air borne , the rear right end having taken a severe impact from the pole .. Withing a matter of few seconds we were flat on the divider , with the passengers door sticking onto the divider itself .. It took us both some time to regain our composure , and once we realised we were yet alive got out of the car from the drivers window ..


It was then that it struck us that after hitting the light pole the car had overturned and crashed onto the divider sideways .. All glasses shattered except , the one on the passengers side .. Which evidently saved me , as my head severly bounced against the glass time and time again when we were air borne and on landing back onto the divider .. Had the window been rolled down , my head would have certainly crashed against the divider and i wouldnt have been alive to write down this post .. Soon after we got out of the car and realised that we didnt have any major injuries (thanking our lucky stars) psycho was out to get the trucks number noted down and i was sticking against the boot of my car to prevent the mob that had gathered there from nicking away my ICE setup ..


Made a few frantic calls to psychos friends vasu and hari (whose place we were just returning from ), v1p3r , anush and then at last to our parents to let them know what happened .. Worried as hell , all of them landed up at the accident spot in 10 mins or so .. It was a big relief to see someone we knew and the 1st thing we got to doing is to shift all the ICE setup into a back up car .. Once we were done with that we took a small breather and then it began to sink in as to how lucky we were to get out of this accident alive ..


Until then we had never thought it that way , but now on closely observing the car figured out the extent of damage , and we figured out that the car still lay on the divider with the front half facing the right lane of the other road and the rear half of the car on the right lane of the opposite lane .. Had any vehicles been hurtling down in the right most lanes of the thier respective ends they would have definetely collided into us thus complicating the situation further .. Also that we had gotten out of the car thru the window on the drivers side .. Whew that was scary ..


Soon cops arrive at the situation and seeing the dangerous positioning of the car decided to lift it and put it in a rather safe place .. Soon i got a call from my aunt who lived closeby who had heard about the accident from my parents , and was evidently looking for us under the flyover thinking that we had actually flipped over the 100 ft bridge ..


Realised that thats what my parents had thought of the situation and sent a shiver across my spine wondering what would be going thru them as they were driving across towards the accident spot .. Immediately called them to tell them that we hadnt flipped over the bridge , but flipped on the bridge and were still on top of it .. Had we flipped over the bridge , we wouldnt have even been in a position to call up and let the others know that we were alive .. Thats when the real feeling of what could have happened really sunk in ..


The next two days , we had to run around at the police station to get the paper work sorted out .. Then met up with the RTO officers for them to complete the inspection .. It was a hectic process , one that we were glad now that it had been done with .. Then next the car was towed to the showroom for further inspection and to approve a claim from the insurers .. It was rather a short process to put across an insurance claim , work made moresover easier now that i had healthy contacts with the higher officials at R.N.S.Motors .. Now looking at the status of the car and going back to thinking about the harrowing experience that we had we decided that the family no longer wanted to get the car repaired and rather claim a total loss on it .. Also the fact that the car would never drive the same being at the helm ..


Talks with the works manager revealed repair estimates of a whopping 2.95L and thus the car did qualify for a total loss ..It took us a further 3 weeks to come to a settlement with the insurers who insisted that the repairs would cost only 2L and hence we could get the car repaired .. After repeated requests and arguments from our side they (DM and surveyor , national insurance) have agreed to fwd the claim for total loss to their higher officials .. So that will take sometime to get solved ..

Here are a few pics of the car that were taken at the station , pics dont do justice to the extent of the damage of the car one has to see the car to figure out how bad it was ..











A big thanks to all the tbhpians v1p3r , anush ,suhas (anush's bro) , xtreme nos , vasu and hari (psychos friends) who helped us at the accident spot and all others like ajmat , rudra , zahed , steeroid , sideways , wolf , amitoj , rtech ,shantanu ,joz , gunbir , JB and all others that i cant remember right now for the concern shown on knowing about this incident ..


Something that i would like to point out is that today the two of us are ALIVE TO WRITE THIS REPORT PRIMARARILY BCOZ OF ONE FACTOR , SEALTBEALTS (yes not to mention the prayers of our family members and friends too) ... Hadnt we not worn seatbelts then we were gonners for sure .. This has to be a lesson for all of us here that wearing seatbelts is the most important factor the moment one gets into a car .. Have no second thoughts about it .. Its meant to save lives , and it did sure save ours ..


It was indeed very hurting , to see my baby bear the brunt of the entire incident just to make sure we were safe .. While the car was being towed to the station , that picture got tears to roll down my cheeks on seeing the extent of damage that it had suffered.. Isnt that the reason we love cars the way we do ??? I guess so .. I did and it was very hard to part away from it , a memory that will last throughout my life for it being my 1st car , my 1st love .. However ones got to move ahead in life , put back things that happened in the past and thats what we are trying to do .. However this incident being one , whose scars will remain with us for the rest of our lives ..

[s0uljah]

mcclaren1885,

They say what doesnt kill us, only makes us stronger

And life goes on...........

Stuff happens bro, whats important is that you and psycho got out of it.
The memory will remain forever and also serve as an important lesson to all of us.

God Bless you all, Team BHP.

[mclaren1885]

Forgot to mention that psycho and me came out of the incident without any major injuries .. I got a 8'' scratch on my left hand by the glass that kept flying around im thinking , a tiny cut on the ear and a few bruises on the head .. Whereas psycho went unconscious soon after the impact and remained so until about 10 secs after we landed on the side of the car .. Pyscho had a hair line fracture on his wrist , a few bruises on the head as well .. We went and got a X-ray done up at some 3 in the morning and we were told that everything was alright .. We literally thank GOD , our parents , friends and all our well wishers for having such a miraculous escape ..

I would also once again like to thank all the bhpians who helped us out in one way or the other .. It just goes to show what we have achieved from this forum apart from knowlegde , more importantly friends who are always there at the time of need .. Thanks guys , thank tbhp for giving us an oppurtunity to meet up with such great guys at heart ..

[moralfibre]

Seeing the condition in which your car is, I must say you guys were lucky but more importantly it was the seatbelts that held you tight when your car flung in air.
BTW What speed was it @ the point of contact? Has any action been taken against the truck driver?

[revtech]

hey man although i knew about this earlier and already said it.im really sorry to hear about what happened and im glad your okay man.seeing the damage on your car its really good to see youll escaped with minor injuries.

take care buddy
Drive safe
Rev

[SLK]

Oh... Thank god you guys are fine!... this looks like an ugly "accident"
Really sorry for your car. :(

Would it be right to say, that if you were doing less speed than whatever you were doing... the incident could have been saved? or rather escape with minor damages only.

[turbo_lover]

glad to know you two walked out of it ..fortunately the car took all the impact not you two ..

a reminder to all - SEATBELTS DO SAVE LIVES ...

hope you two have a speedy recovery ..
cheers

[mclaren1885]

Originally Posted by moralfibre

BTW What speed was it @ the point of contact? Has any action been taken against the truck driver?

Just before we locked the brakes we were doing exactly 65 .. Well we did lodge a complaint against the truck driver for rash driving but as it was a unavoidable , had to happen road accident .. Once we had all the formalities , papers required for claiming insurance we let him go .. Keshav , dad and myself personally didnt feel like punishing the truck driver as at the end of the day he too was trying to save a bikers life who stalled ahead of him ..

Originally Posted by SRK

Would it be right to say, that if you were doing less speed than whatever you were doing... the incident could have been saved? or rather escape with minor damages only.

Well i wouldnt exactly say or agree to the same , the entire brigde on the right lane was EMPTY .. The only vehicles that lay ahead of us were the truck in the left lane and the biker ahead of the truck .. All the vehicles behind us were maintaining constant speeds of 60-70 themselves .. Well for the lack of time we had to respond to the situation ( the truck swerving in a frantic manner to the right without any caution) i dont think that any speeds of less than 40 could have saved us from banging (the truck swerved just as we were about to overtake , with hardly a distance of 5-10ft btwn the two).. If one looks at it from another point of view , bcoz we were doing that speeds we hit the truck on its tyre , if not we would have head a head on collision with the truck and we would have been under it than topple next to it (the way that it happened now) ..

Here are a few pics of where we hit the truck .. The car hit the truck bang on its tyre (that was where the 1st impact was made) when the truck was at atleast 15-20 degrees sideways as he swerved ..

Here u can notice that once we hit the trucks tyre the cars front end lifted thereby hitting the tyre guard , thus bending it totally out of proportion ..


Front left fenders marks on the tyre on 1st imapct :

[Steeroid]

Hey McLaren

A bit late in the day, sorry - YEAR - but my condolences all the same (this time officially).

I still feel bad about saying THIS just 3 days before the accident happened. That was the first thought that went through my mind when you called me that evening.

PS: Did Godfather turn up on that day...because he said THIS too.

[Ford Rocam]

Mclaren/Psycho, That one was a real SCARY accident !!! just reminded me of my ikon crash it happened in similar way only thing the truck wanted to take a U turn, I can just imagine your state of mind after the accident.

its high time that people realize the importance of seatbelts no matter what is the speed of the vehicle.Your is a classic example & thankfully to god you all escaped the incident with minor injury.

in btw didnt you asked truck driver why he didnt stopped in same lane instead of taking sudden right ? I m sure he must have not seen in his side mirror that car is coming (may be he didnt had sufficient time or he just didnt wanted to stop).

[ksethuram]

Thank god that u had escaped without major injuries. That is a really bad accident, the seatbelts and side impact bar's saved you... More luckily there was no passenger in the rear seat. Put this aside as a bad dream ...

[zenx]

scary. thank God u made it relatively cheaply.
While the truckie was trying to save a life, but its apparent he did not
a) probably have enough of a margin
b) cause of a), time to (or cause of plain bad driving) check his RVM before changing direction of his vehicle.
A lot many accidents will be avoided if ppl merely glance at the RVMs and blind spots before a direction change (lane switch is not necessarily relevant in our context) and PLAN the manouvre rather than go ahead and execute it as soon as it comes to the mind.
Most ppl instinctively swerve rather than try and stop - and the very low margins generally maintained (definitely not the 4 second gap) are probably the culprit. This also happens a lot at traffic lights.
It may be worth the effort to campaign for just this one habit change - it'll save a lot of loss of property/life. Esp life.

Hope your insurance gets cleared. Someone should publish a claims record for performance - will help in choosing the right insurance provider.

[satyamenon]

Yikes ! Thank god you got out of it with little or no damage to yourselves.

Really sad about the car man... I know how it feels to have your pride and joy involved in an accident...

Well, now we know why the talk about buying the Baleno...

[satish_appasani]

Mclaren & Psycho

You guys are very lucky to get out of this with minor injuries. God is great.

[shuvc]

An accident in the truest sense of the word. What an escape. These sort of incidents do give you a new perspective to life. Destiny ...
Take care.