[Dry Ice]

I was reading through the Zoom cars agreement and came upon these -

2. Prohibited Uses

2.1 The use of a Zoomcar vehicle under the following conditions is prohibited:

a. any speed race or competition;
..
d. by any person who is under the influence of (i) alcohol or (ii) any drug or medication under the effects of which the operation of a vehicle is prohibited or not recommended. A zero-tolerance policy is adopted and a limit of 0.0% applies;
..
f. in an imprudent, negligent, or abusive manner or for any abnormal use of this vehicle;
..
l. Transporting more passengers than there are seatbelts in the vehicle.
..
..
..
..
2.3 Zoomcar may immediately suspend or terminate the use of its service by any Member for a violation of any of these Rules. Upon suspension or termination, any existing reservations for the Member may be canceled by Zoomcar at its sole discretion. In addition, Members will be responsible for any and all costs, charges, fees and expenses incurred by Zoomcar as a result of a breach of any of these Terms and Conditions.

How will they recover the cost, now that the driver/member is no more? It is amply clear he was in violation of their acceptable use policy by carrying 13 people in a 7/8 seater.

EDIT:

Originally Posted by fusionbang

Here is the video of the same from my Dashcam, see how he zoomed off with the Scorpio (Watch in HD)

Video seems to be private, can you please make it public?

[AveekKumar]

Just back from a back to back(apologies for the 3 X back) weekend trip with Zoomcar.

Weekend 1 : Pune to Kaas plateau with an overnight halt in Satara. Booked a Honda City as I needed a good long feel of the iDtec. Power/pickup was fabulous. NVH was extremely high. Ride quality was excellent. The car was picked up from basement of IBIS hotel Viman nagar. Single representative walked me through the car and checklist. Torch, tablet and aux cable missing. Exterior cleanliness 8/10. Internal cleanliness 9/10. Model S with ~15K KMs on the odo. Faced the known GC issues associated with the City. But was floored by the power, especially on the ghat sections. Highway ride was better in terms of NVH, thanks to the 6th gear cruising speeds. Returned the car 2 hours in advance teh next day since we had already capped the KM limit. Auto lock was not working, so had to call the helpdesk. They tried from their end, however it did no work. Finally spoke to the zoomcar attendant on the phone and he asked me to lock and hand over the keys to the hotel taxi provider. Citrus cash was credited that evening itself and credited to my account on 14th.

Weekend 2 : Pune-Daman via Mumbai. This time opted for the Ford Figo. Zoomcar attendant did the same, introduction of all dents and scratches in the car. Space much much lesser compared to the City(obvious), also found the seating to be a bit low. Wife found the under thigh support to be inadequate in the passenger seat & she had to keep her legs stretched in front rather than folded like regular seating position. I found the shoulder room to be tight, for example, reaching for your wallet in the rear pocket requires you to unbuckle your seat belt. Car had reverse sensors of which the extreme left sensor was faulty. Car had 75K on ODO already. Ride was smooth enough. Didn't feel like the car had been driven so much already. Wipers were disappointing, probably due to frequent use. Bluetooth connectivity with phone was not working due to some pin. Tried the default ones but none of them worked. Returned the car again with 2 hour to spare and ~100kms left in my booking. Initially had the same issue with locking of the car, however this time it finally locked after ~10 mins.

Just a query, do you get a partial refund if you return the car with time/kms still left in the booking or am i being too optimistic?

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by Dry Ice

How will they recover the cost, now that the driver/member is no more? It is amply clear he was in violation of their acceptable use policy by carrying 13 people in a 7/8 seater.

?

From the Hindu article, the driver of the Scorpio did not die. He survived and is in the hospital. Two other innocent girls died.

Now that they are in clear violation of the policy, Zoomcar will demand the member who booked the car to pay up for each and every expense. Not sure about the legal angle since this will include compensating for the dead passengers too. Maybe this can be dragged to court since the member will have to disburse a lot of money. No way Zoomcar will let go of the issue.

Originally Posted by fusionbang

I agree with all you guys on the above posts. Today was coming back on Mysore road and I could see close to 10 zoom cars during my 1 hour journey. Also I could see that each and every car was driven very rashly and I had to stay away from them every time.
.

Compared to the morons I have seen zooming, this is nothing. These are the people who drive rashly, and damage cars. Later they have the audacity to complain on the Zoomcar FB page asking why they were charged for damaging the car.

[AveekKumar]

Originally Posted by audioholic

Compared to the morons I have seen zooming, this is nothing. These are the people who drive rashly, and damage cars. Later they have the audacity to complain on the Zoomcar FB page asking why they were charged for damaging the car.

I asked the Zoomcar attendant while taking possession of my Figo in the last trip about why all the cars had so much damage and if they are charging the customers for the damage, why doesn't it reflect on their fleet? The attendant just smiled and said "Sir, we just check the DL and you know how easy it is to get a DL. Most of the customers take our cars for fun. More than half of them don't even know how to drive, but we have to provide for such customers.

[Vid6639]

Originally Posted by AveekKumar

Just a query, do you get a partial refund if you return the car with time/kms still left in the booking or am i being too optimistic?

They used to give a 50% refund if you return early and did not use up your kms. They stopped this since a while now. No goodwill refund for early return.

[Dry Ice]

Originally Posted by audioholic

From the Hindu article, the driver of the Scorpio did not die. He survived and is in the hospital. Two other innocent girls died.

Now that they are in clear violation of the policy, Zoomcar will demand the member who booked the car to pay up for each and every expense. Not sure about the legal angle since this will include compensating for the dead passengers too. Maybe this can be dragged to court since the member will have to disburse a lot of money. No way Zoomcar will let go of the issue.

If the member survives, I am not sure how will this case proceed.

Vehicle's insurance must cover the incidental and 3rd party losses - up to an extent I believe. How much does Zoomcar claim from the member then? Just the deductibles or more?

Most likely, it will get drawn to court as the member is likely to decline any demands.

[Eddy]

How will they conclusively prove that there were more than 7 passengers onboard ?

[Vid6639]

Originally Posted by Dry Ice

If the member survives, I am not sure how will this case proceed.

Vehicle's insurance must cover the incidental and 3rd party losses - up to an extent I believe. How much does Zoomcar claim from the member then? Just the deductibles or more?

Most likely, it will get drawn to court as the member is likely to decline any demands.

If you don't violate any of Zoom's policies and meet with an accident the maximum deductible is 5K.

If you are found in violation of any of their terms like rash driving, speeding, overloading the vehicle with more passengers then Zoom will hold you liable for all damages to the vehicle and not just the deductible.

Originally Posted by Eddy

How will they conclusively prove that there were more than 7 passengers onboard ?

Well it's all over newspapers and the 11 of them are in hospital with 2 dead. I doubt you can prove otherwise that 4 of them were bystanders or pedestrians.

[Dry Ice]

Originally Posted by Eddy

How will they conclusively prove that there were more than 7 passengers onboard ?

Won't the Police report help in this case? It might have eyewitness accounts confirming the number of passengers.

Originally Posted by Vid6639

If you don't violate any of Zoom's policies and meet with an accident the maximum deductible is 5K.

If you are found in violation of any of their terms like rash driving, speeding, overloading the vehicle with more passengers then Zoom will hold you liable for all damages to the vehicle and not just the deductible.

Yes, that is what their 'terms of use' give an impression of. So it seems a court case is inevitable.

[Eddy]

Originally Posted by Vid6639

If I doubt you can prove otherwise that 4 of them were bystanders or pedestrians.

I think the Zoomcar fellows will have to prove that there were 11 in the car - Innocent until proven guilty.

[reverse_gear]

Originally Posted by Eddy

I think the Zoomcar fellows will have to prove that there were 11 in the car - Innocent until proven guilty.

In this particular case, considering the gravity of the incident with lost lives and serious injuries, the police records and investigation should bear it out.

However, as a more general point, it is possible that in other cases of overloading leading to an accident, if the police does not arrive on the spot immediately and there are no eyewitnesses, then the renter may try to mislead Zoomcar.

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by Eddy

I think the Zoomcar fellows will have to prove that there were 11 in the car - Innocent until proven guilty.

Vidyut has already explained most of it. Yesterday this post did come up in Zoomcars FB page and they admitted that there were 13 people in the car. They also told that during pickup only 7 people were there and the rest were picked up enroute. So they are aware of the entire issue.

Now coming to the responsibility part,

1. There is already a police report and newspaper report of the incident. This report clearly mentions the number and the details of the occupants. So its too late for any manipulation. Moreover the kin of the dead will be fuming at the other passengers and the driver by now for which they would have gathered enough evidence.

2. Next the insurance company will wash their hands off this case based on the police reports since that's the deciding factor to approve or reject the claim. This will mean that the repairs as well as medical expenses/compensation will not be provided by the insurance company.

3. Now Zoomcar will be legally held responsible for the whole issue since the car will be registered in their name and they will have to bear the whole scene. Since its a rental agency, they will have to show that there is another person(borrower) to be held responsible in the issue, and the driver of the car during the incident.

After this, a long legal battle will follow. Not sure where the case will go to. I bet Zoomcar will not agree to fund all the expenses. Moreover they have lost the car too.

[DevilsCry]

Zoomcar has commented on Facebook regarding Scorpio accident.

"This is certainly a very unfortunate accident. In this particular incident, the customers came to the site with only 7 total people and they very clearly did not have 13 passengers. These additional individuals would have been picked up at a later point of time. We very clearly don't condone taking more than 7 passengers into any vehicle. In fact, this customer received an overspeeding alert from us just before the accident. Regarding the other incident, that particular customer was reprimanded and fined accordingly. At Zoomcar, we continue to go to great lengths to ensure the safety of our customers and the driving community at large. We will deploy even more tools to this end over the coming weeks and months."

Source: https://www.facebook.com/zoomcar.in/...19921654702590

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Someone has posted this pic on their Facebook wall:



Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...e=1&permPage=1

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As a regular Zoomcar user myself (20 bookings done and counting), I'm unhappy to see other users giving responsible Zoomcar users a bad name. Due to repeated use, I kinda see Zoom vehicles as my own.

[naveenroy]

Sad about the loss of life in this case. But in this day and age, it is idiotic to overload a vehicle AND overspeed.

Now, ZoomCar will tighten the procedures and increase the deposit money. Maybe for a good cause though.

[suresh_gs]

Originally Posted by naveenroy

Sad about the loss of life in this case. But in this day and age, it is idiotic to overload a vehicle AND overspeed.

Now, ZoomCar will tighten the procedures and increase the deposit money. Maybe for a good cause though.

The best possible solution would be to go for speed governors and restrict the maximum speed to say 90 kmph. This is just a thought. If people can drive irresponsibly without bothering about other's lives, the rental agency should tighten the screws to safeguard their vehicle and name.
As regards overloading, one can always cheat the rental agency by picking passengers enroute. That being the case, the driver should have slowed down accordingly.