[NPV]

During my recent trip to Chennai we saw something unusual which is the inspiration for this thread. Please share your experiences as well.

Let me start with this one:
On our way back to Bangalore, about 15/20 Km before Chittoor we saw that traffic had come to a stop in front of us. I thought it may be an accident but also saw many 2 wheelers parked on both sides of the road and there was a lot of activity with people moving around carrying vessels, bottles, cans, etc. After about 10 minutes the vehicles started moving slowly and traffic from opposite direction was stopped by locals and cops who were controlling the situation. It was then that we saw a huge fuel/oil truck that had skidded and was lying sideways on the field beside the road with it's underbody visible from the road. People were all around the truck collecting the oil/fuel oozing out of the tanker - they had bottles, cans, jugs, mugs, buckets, vessels, barrels, etc
We tried enquiring with a few guys on the road but we could not understand what they were saying, still don't know what the magic liquid was (it seemed like some greenish oil)!

MODS:Search did not yield a separate thread of this, but if one does exist, please merge or Delete. Also, if forum location for this is incorrect, please move to appropriate section.

[YaeJay]

^^ reminds me of seeing something similar on TV years back, somewhere in North India, tanker turns turtle. Happens I guess, What was shocking was villagers who had gone to collect the 'liquid' from the nearby villages were running away with burn injuries. Quite a few died according to the report. Was a very disturbing footage.

The villagers thought the tanker had kerosene. But, it was concentrated acid.


We haven't evolved much have we? maybe we got to learn more from the Japanese not just in terms of technology and cars but also how to behave responsibility.

[promit]

Nice thread idea. Considering the cartoon show you see on Indian roads everyday, there will be loads of incidents which will be shared I'm sure.

Originally Posted by NPV

People were all around the truck collecting the oil/fuel oozing out of the tanker - they had bottles, cans, jugs, mugs, buckets, vessels, barrels, etc

I'm trying not to visualise what people did with the oil/fuel they collected with bottles,cans,jugs,mugs,buckets etc. This must happen only in India!


There's this one recent unusual you don't see everyday kind of incident which comes to my mind.
About 3-4 weeks back I was taking a turn left from mg road into the dlf phase 2 gate. I was driving at a very relaxed pace. I was following behind a red/maroon yamaha R15 taking the same turn in front of me. He was a good 2 cars lenghts ahead of me. Then next thing, i hear screeching of car tires. A white swift coming from the opposite side evidently driving in the middle of the road hit the bike at a pecular angle. The swift guy was making a left onto the the made road but he hit the bike on his right front fender area.
The bike was knocked off and fell. It wasnt very hard but it wasnt very soft either. I saw the R15's rear indicator thing had broken.
All this happened a couple of feet infront of my bonnet. I put on my hazards and instinctively reached to open my seatbelt, then i fumbled cause i suddenly realised if the swift guy runs away everyone would think I banged the bike guy.
While i was debating whether to get off or pull over to the side first, the white swift guy a well heeled young guy stepped out. He picked up the biker who seemed fine but a little shaken and disoriented, He picked up the bike and his bag pack which had fallen, gave the biker a hug and then they shook hands The swift guy jumped in his car and whizzed off (probably thanking his stars) and the R15 just started and zoomed off too in the opposite direction.
I was like woah.I assumed there would be a crowd and a blame game. I was extremely amused. It was over in less than 60 seconds. Plus, i was really glad the biker didnt get hurt!

[esteem_lover]

Originally Posted by promit

While i was debating whether to get off or pull over to the side first, the white swift guy a well heeled young guy stepped out. He picked up the biker who seemed fine but a little shaken and disoriented, He picked up the bike and his bag pack which had fallen, gave the biker a hug and then they shook hands The swift guy jumped in his car and whizzed off (probably thanking his stars) and the R15 just started and zoomed off too in the opposite direction.
I was like woah.I assumed there would be a crowd and a blame game. I was extremely amused. It was over in less than 60 seconds. Plus, i was really glad the biker didnt get hurt!

Probably 2 T-BHPians.

[AlphaKilo]

Originally Posted by esteem_lover

Probably 2 T-BHPians.

sar lets keep it like this - spot TBHP sticker acknowledgment method! if its a biker, knock him off the road and give a hug. If a car, rear-end, t-bone, head on(what ever one does, make sure, his airbags explode) and well other methods to meet, hit and hug, please feel free to innovate methods to bump on other tbhpians. This for sure would bring the fact whether the person is a real member, if so his handle, if not atleast you got to know another fake TBHPian

may be some good samaritian, that he had the courtesy to come out and give a hug atleast. Although not the best reply but still not bad driver either, atleast showed humanity.

[ninjatalli]

Originally Posted by promit

He picked up the biker who seemed fine but a little shaken and disoriented, He picked up the bike and his bag pack which had fallen, gave the biker a hug and then they shook hands

What he did to the biker (above) is probably the main reason this got settled so nicely. A warm smile, a heart-felt sorry - these help resolve such petty issues pretty fast. Of course you need level-headed blokes on both sides in such scenarios.

Scene 1: The stretch to my office is such a traffic filled jammed up route that we have a separate thread for it on TBHP. Now generally the right and center lanes are lined up with cars/buses while the bikes take up the left most lanes. But then there are these smart alecs who try to make a route in-between the slow moving lanes of cars. Some of them do it slowly, passing one car at a time. Others believe they can just zoom in without stopping. So the other day a biker does that, and while passing by my car, he hits the right ORVM so hard that it swings out the other way! I get pissed off, almost ready to fight him - he stops, waits for me to advance, and before I could even utter a word, with a very sorry face, he apologies and sets the ORVM straight. In a second, my anger vanishes.

Scene 2: On a similar traffic filled (return) journey on the same route, I am now on the center lane, with two colleagues joining me that day. Just before a junction, there seems to be a jam in my lane, however the left lane is moving ahead. I show the indicator, wait for a gap in the traffic, and then cautiously change the lanes. Just right then, the bike behind me decides to do the same, however he doesn't feel its necessary to do it slowly and instead tries to cut me on the left. However there is no gap, he hits my bumper and falls. I move a little ahead, park the car on the sideways, and get out.

My colleague (a localite) who is out before me is already on a verbal duel with the biker in Marathi, the tones increasing at both ends. I come out, have a look at the car - no visible scratches. I then politely ask him - Is he hurt? Is there any damage to his bike? He is floundered! He stares at me for a second, looks at his bike and then meekly utters no. I apologize to him, and suggest that we should continue home instead of blocking this lane for the incoming traffic. He agrees, and we move on.

[coriollis]

This happened to me in Mumbai couple of years back.
I was with my dad in Andheri Station area for some family function. I was not habbitual driving in Mumbai those days. What I did was I followed a BEST bus on a certain road. Couple of meters ahead I was stopped by a senior police cop. When inquired I found out that the road was a One Way, and only BEST buses were allowed too and fro.
I took my car on one side, went out and appologised, he probably saw my Pune registration number. I asked him about the fine amount and was ready to pay. He asked me to wait at side while he was dealing with another person who had done similar offence. I thought that he wanted an outside settlement without receipt. I waited.
The other person was yelling and probably calling his ' connections'. But the cop didn't budge and offendor had to pay the stipulated fine.

Now was my turn. I straight away asked the cop what he wanted. To my amazement, the cop denied any bribe. He even denied to penalize me. He said that he liked my honesty to accept an offence and readiness to pay fine. He wanted to be sure that the yelling guy pays his dues before he sets me free. He also said that if you don't give law abiding citizens a chance, How will they be motivated? Just amazing..
He also said that this will improve the image of Police fraternity.

I know it is hard to believe this. I also pincehed myself before moving ahead, just to be sure of my reality.
I still have to come across any other person in uniform so focused and religous about his own duty.

Cheers.
Abhijeet

[selfdrive]

This morning on my way to work at Law college road.
There is a left turn from SNDT and at the junction where this left joins Law college road there usually is a bedlam with vehicles of all sorts taking the left turn regardless of what colour the signal is.

But shockingly everyone was waiting patiently for the left signal to turn green. No one honked or gestured either. There must be a cop lurking somewhere around, I smirked to myself. Then the signal turned green, and my smirk disappeared.

I took the left turn, parked my bike and looked around for a couple of more minutes. There was no cop in sight!

How did hundreds of people wait and obey a signal without honking? without a cop in sight? Very unusual and eerie. Still gives me goosebumps and I hope I dont wake up in a sweat tonight.

[mpksuhas]

Originally Posted by NPV

. It was then that we saw a huge fuel/oil truck that had skidded and was lying sideways on the field beside the road with it's underbody visible from the road. People were all around the truck collecting the oil/fuel oozing out of the tanker - they had bottles, cans, jugs, mugs, buckets, vessels, barrels, etc

I remember couple of years back a similar incident happening in Calicut. However it was a tanker train with kerosene. Dont know why people risk their life for few liters of fuel which majority of population wont be using more than few liters in a month.

Originally Posted by YaeJay

What was shocking was villagers who had gone to collect the 'liquid' from the nearby villages were running away with burn injuries. Quite a few died according to the report. Was a very disturbing footage.

Not sure if we both talking about same incident. However remember a same kind of incident long back (may be ~15 yrs) where people started collecting petrol / kerosene from a tanker which met with accident and while doing so the tanker caught fire. Images of half burnt people crawling out of the fire was horrible.

On a similar note, my uncle was on a trip to Trivandrum. He was in an auto from station to his place of stay while the auto stopped at petrol bunk. Uncle was suprised to see both auto driver and petrol bunk attendant running towards the road. Seems, a container truck from RBI mint going towards RBI Trivandrum overturned causing the cargo (freshly printed vitamin M) to fly over road. Huge crowd appeared in seconds trying to collect the money and couple of CISF gaurds who were travelling with the truck was not sure what to do.

[mb_jg]

We were on our way to Kolhapur, noticed a Chevrolet Optra in my rear view mirror trying to catch up with us. After a few moments I saw a wheel cover overtake me :o) the Optra must've hit a really bad ditch or something & lost his wheel cover. We had a hearty laugh.

[sanjeevskartha]

Originally Posted by NPV

It was then that we saw a huge fuel/oil truck that had skidded and was lying sideways on the field beside the road with it's underbody visible from the road. People were all around the truck collecting the oil/fuel oozing out of the tanker - they had bottles, cans, jugs, mugs, buckets, vessels, barrels, etc

Had met with a similar experience some years ago. A huge truck had overturned near a hairpin bend and the contents of the truck had spilled over to the road. Guess the content- Covered bottles of Chivas Regal
There was a huge crowd around the lorry with people trying to make off with any bottle that was not broken.

[srikanthns]

Originally Posted by coriollis

This happened to me in Mumbai couple of years back.
I was with my dad in Andheri Station area for some family function. I was not habbitual driving in Mumbai those days. What I did was I followed a BEST bus on a certain road. Couple of meters ahead I was stopped by a senior police cop. When inquired I found out that the road was a One Way, and only BEST buses were allowed too and fro.
I took my car on one side, went out and appologised, he probably saw my Pune registration number. I asked him about the fine amount and was ready to pay. He asked me to wait at side while he was dealing with another person who had done similar offence. I thought that he wanted an outside settlement without receipt. I waited.
The other person was yelling and probably calling his ' connections'. But the cop didn't budge and offendor had to pay the stipulated fine.

Now was my turn. I straight away asked the cop what he wanted. To my amazement, the cop denied any bribe. He even denied to penalize me. He said that he liked my honesty to accept an offence and readiness to pay fine. He wanted to be sure that the yelling guy pays his dues before he sets me free. He also said that if you don't give law abiding citizens a chance, How will they be motivated? Just amazing..
He also said that this will improve the image of Police fraternity.
Abhijeet

Something similar happened to me in Chennai. In Trivandrum, in those days (15 years back), all left turns are free left turns. Landed in Chennai, took my friends bike and Started from near Adyar telephone exchange and started to go towards saidapet. From Lattice Bridge road to Sardar Vallabhai patel I did not wait for anything and took a left turn thinking it was a free left which it was not. Bang in front of me was a traffic sergeant who stopped me. I was totally flustered. I blurted out the reason ( trivandrum trend) and showed him my ID Card which said I was working in Trivandrum. He just looked at me for 2 minutes and waved me off muttering under the breath " why even educated people are not obeying traffic rules". Great escape!

[VishnuNarayanan]

Originally Posted by srikanthns

Something similar happened to me in Chennai. In Trivandrum, in those days (15 years back), all left turns are free left turns. Landed in Chennai, took my friends bike and Started from near Adyar telephone exchange and started to go towards saidapet. From Lattice Bridge road to Sardar Vallabhai patel I did not wait for anything and took a left turn thinking it was a free left which it was not. Bang in front of me was a traffic sergeant who stopped me. I was totally flustered. I blurted out the reason ( trivandrum trend) and showed him my ID Card which said I was working in Trivandrum. He just looked at me for 2 minutes and waved me off muttering under the breath " why even educated people are not obeying traffic rules". Great escape!

In Trivandrum I think still the same is practised even now. I do it at almost all the junctions. Unless its a cop who is handling the junction I use to turn left after having a thorough check.
Anyway thank you for reminding of such a rule. Its quite a information that would be useful when travelling out of the state.

[esteem_lover]

Originally Posted by srikanthns

Bang in front of me was a traffic sergeant who stopped me.

Wonder why cops WAIT for an offence and then penalise instead of being out there preventing one !!

[coriollis]

This story is some 20 years back, but I remember it very clearly. It happened like this:

Our family of four, myself, dad, mother and younger brother and a family friend with his family of three, were travelling from Shirdi to pune. Our ride was 1967 Fiat 1100D.
We had our 'Darshan', offered our prayers and were out of Shirdi at around 3 pm feeling very satisfied. We now chose Shirdi- Sangamner- Pune route. Shirdi- Sangamner route was very lonely at that time.
We were cruising sedately at around 70kmph, the road had deep trench on both sides, almost of 10-12 feet deep. My father who was driving, suddenly sensed something wrong. He cautiously applied brakes, changed gears, and brought the vehicle to a standstill. He thought we had a puncture. When we were out examining, we found out that the nut bolt of the lower knuckle joint was missing, the wheel had come off from the lower side and was resting in the mudguard. We were shell shocked and were contemplating about the due course of action. No vehicle was stopping. My father went couple of hundred meter back too inspect the road for the fallen nut bolt, amazingly he found the duo.
Almost 2 hours passed by, when a local jeep stopped. After inspection the driver declared that this job can only be done by using two jacks. He lent his tools and by using ours he lifted the vehicle on two jacks. Our family friend then went with him to Sangamner to get a mechanic.
It was sunset already, and there was no sign of the mechanic. Darkness had started to creep in. Frankly speaking we were scared. My father showed immense composure and took my mother ,younger brother with friends wife and son to nearby field surrounded by trees. Idea was that we should remain safe and secluded.
After half hour or so, we saw a vehicle approaching, we thought that Dad's friend was back with mechanic. But we were disappointed to see an old ambassador filled with Roudy people to hilt. The car passed us slowly.We didn't dare to stop that car for help. But the car stopped and reversed back. People got out of the car. The stench of their drink was getting to me now. I'm sure my father was also afraid, but didn't show his emotions.
The ambassador was AP registered. There were almost eight people in the car.
They took one look at the vehicle, and spoke something in Telugu. Two guys took of their shirts and went under the vehicle. There were noises of hammers, and pliers under the vehicle. After twenty minutes or so, they emerged from under the car. They said in broken Hindi, that everything is done except for one powerful stroke of hammer. The big hammer required to generate that kind of force, was not present with us, it is normally present with the truck drivers. They literally stood in middle of road to make a truck stop. The driver was reluctant to lend his hammer. These guys threatened him, and took the required tool and repaired our vehicle.

They even took a trial ride to see if everything was okay.
We were so thankful to them, so asked them about the charges. They denied it saying they were only helping and doing God's service.
Saying this they just zoomed off.
It was almost 10 pm then. The divine people spent almost 3 hours to help us.
Eventually the mechanic arrived, inspected the vehicle and were cleared to proceed.
What will you call this friends? Isn't it a divine stroke?
Even to this date this instance remains a very special and mesmerizing one to me.

I have now made a point to always help the stranded people on road. This is my little bit to always remain in there debt.
Cheers.
Abhijeet.