[Samurai]

Originally Posted by Neo.

I was there at the spot around 9.00 enroute to RV College, saw the toppled truck, which was still lying there, as usual in true Indian style. I guess the truck guy was doing insane speeds.

Truck guys don't need insane speeds to topple over. When they are heavily laden, and it is common for Indian truck to overload 200% or more, their CG goes out of whack, even a slight force can topple them. I did think about how that truck may have ended up like that, he didn't really hit anything. That blind curve surely induced that toppling.

Originally Posted by Neo.

But as far as the road is concerned i doubt, if it could have been designed any better, with the railway track right next to it and the vrishabavathi river flowing on the other side.

They shouldn't have turned a existing 2 lane highway into a fast 4 lane road in the first place. Now drivers tend to speed because of the 4 lane, but this road has inherited all its 2 lane curves. If the straightening was not possible, they should have tried to increase the visibility.

Originally Posted by Neo.

Moreover i must add; that particular curve in front of the RTO is pretty well designed, extremely wide and also banked to help you steer easily.

There in lies my point, they have made the curves wide and banked it well like any fast highway, practically encouraging fast driving. At the same time there is no visibility in that curve until you straighten, if there is an immediate obstacle, the vehicle is toast. It may be a good design from race track point of view, but very badly designed for safety as I mentioned in my original post.

Originally Posted by Neo.

Moreover beware of bullock carts on the extreme left lane and blind uturns by tractors and other slow moving traffic and stay within 80 kmph atleast till you cross kengeri limits.

I am well aware of it since I drive this highway regularly, and I was doing 70kmph during this incident, so what is the safe limit really. But I don't agree with the Kengeri limits, the traffic situation remains like this at least until Maddur. It become better only after Mandya where the visibility is much better and not much pedestrian traffic.

Originally Posted by Steeroid

With the amount of driving you do Samurai, you need a Scorpio or a Safari. I used to think a normal car would serve the purpose too - I saw light after 3 years.

Ah! I don't really like SUVs much since they can never handle like cars. I have not driven any Indian SUVs, but I have driven Acura MDX on and off and a few mini vans occasionally. But the only SUV I like driving was Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited Edition, just heavenly, but that was on a very hilly terrain, don't know how it would feel on regular roads. May be I should just drive some Indian SUVs on Indian roads and see how it feels.

Ajmat, thanks for the number.

[Buffetfan]

Samurai,
sad to hear about your weekend...the good part is though that there were no injuries...this reminds me of my last trip to bangalore from hyd (In my uno 1.2...had not purchased Baleno yet). ..I was doing about 60kmph in a rainy day..on the initial section outside yelhanka (which is 6 laned) and out of nowhere the road ended and started again about 20 inches higher...there was no ramp to connect these two different levels and lucky me, my car went one tyre up on that...
I saw sparks flying all over the place as I desperately braked in order to stop while the undercarriage scraped the road edge...finlly was able to stop and realise that there was no significant damage apart from a shaved front bumper and scratched engine guard(Uno came with a full engine guard)
about 120 km further down on the highway I turned a blindroad to find a truck parked on the road ...little did I realise that the truck guy had placed big stones 100 ft ahead of the truck..and just out of this blind turn...again went throu the torture of listening to the sickening sound of my car underbelly getting rammed by these boulders...some of them got stuck between the front and rear axles and accompanied the car till I got to a halt from about 100 kmph... this time I was again lucky as the car started making strange sounds but did not stop and carried me till Hyderabad where they finally straightened a bent lower arm...
our roads....and the safety standards followed ...both by the errant drivers as the governm,ent...the least said the better

[nitinbhag]

Samurai, thats sad..
You would want to get that sump thoroughly checked or replaced.. also, usually, the oil pump is located at the very bottom of the sump.. you would want to check that as well..
On the SUV front - Steer is right, on our roads its more important to be safe.. I find highway life a lot easier in the Dicor than in my Siena1.6. The driving stress level is much lower.

[tsk1979]

Sad to hear about your car. Just get the sump checked again, and get another underbody check if you are not satisfied. These stone hits are real bad.
I have a damaged power steering and braking systems due to a seemingly innocous stone hit!

[Zappo]

Indian roads are death traps, anywhere and not just bangalore or mysore. On the same day that it happened with you there was a news in TOI Hyd ed. A software engineer of an MNC from hyderabad was returning back from bangalore alongwith his parents by road. The guy was driving. In the early morning hours, just on the city periphery somewhere, he hit a truck which was parked bang in the middle of the road. The whole family was killed then and there.

Thankfully you did not suffer any sort of losses except for a botched travel plan. Moral of the story: Never ever trust the Indian roads and the people on them (not necessarily the drivers alone).

[sajo]

Sorry to hear about that Samurai. A similar incident had happened to us a few years ago. We were proceeding down one of the offshoots of the Pune Solapur highway in our Indica2000 at about 70kph, when Dad (who was driving) suddenly saw a line of rocks placed bang in the middle of the deserted road, as if to stop any and every vehicle passing by. We tried to brake, but it was too late. A big thunk followed, followed by a constant "frump frump" sound. Still, we continued for about 100kms and got the bent balancer rod (I think, dont remember) repaired only at the outskirts Solapur.

[Samurai]

Today I was coming back to Bangalore on Mysore road and saw this huge backup near Mandya due to an accident. As I passed the accident site, I saw one Ikon with both windshield completely cracked, and a big dent on the front. Few feet ahead of it was a bike in shambles. Don't know about the status of the drivers and occupants.

What happened? That was easy to guess. The Ikon was in the fast lane, and so was the bike, but in the wrong direction. This was one of those blind crests on Mysore road, the road goes up and then slopes down again. As the vehicle goes up the crest, it has no visibility of the other side. Right after the crest, there is an opening in the divider where the local vehicles cross over to the other side, there by perfecting the booby trap. The bike appears to have travelling the wrong way on the fast lane planning to cross over at the opening. The Ikon that was travelling on the fast lane caught it just before the opening, I don't think the Ikon even had one second notice before seeing the bike head on coming the wrong way.

About 30 minutes later, I almost came across a similar situation. I was following an Alto in safe distance on the fast lane. This was part of the finished section, the oncoming traffic was on the other side of the divider. Then I suddenly see Alto swerve to the left, only to reveal a Tata 407 ripping in the opposite direction in my lane. I had just enough time to swerve and escape. The 407 didn't even bother to slow down.

[nitrous]

Then I suddenly see Alto swerve to the left, only to reveal a Tata 407 ripping in the opposite direction in my lane. I had just enough time to swerve and escape. The 407 didn't even bother to slow down.

Welcome to India.
This happens all the time. U need really better reflexes than Jet pilots to thrive on our roads.

[turbo_c]

I dont get it: Why do they place rocks on the road ahead of the accident site ? If not "death-by-truck" then "death-by-rock" ?

I'm sure most, if not all drivers will do the right thing and start a (controlled) emergency braking manuover as soon as he / she spots the accident site ahead. The rocks on the road only add to the complications. If anything, road cones / the emergency reflective triange should be used... what's the use of adding to the hazzard by putting rocks on the road?!!

To make matters worse... rocks are also put behind a broken-down truck, and more often than not, they are not cleared even after the truck has moved on! Years ago, I have had the left footrest on my (then new) Suzuki Shogun bent backwards when it hit a rock on the Eastern Express highway in Mumbai ! I didn't even see that rock, but I thank my lucky stars that it wasn't the wheel that hit it !

Some really dangerous circus stunts go on on our roads... people need to be educated to stop these !

- T u r b o C -