[umvarma]

Originally Posted by Subhasish.jena

In my opinion, with more power and better maneuverability at vehicles are equipped to move and negotiate roads faster and better. It is the human mind that has not kept pace with this development, in some cases it has been slow (people on cars/heavy vehicles?) and sometimes faster, especially motorcyclists. Nowadays people have developed a false sense of superiority and invulnerability which is a major cause of these types of accidents. What I saw in the video taking place on highways is common in city traffic now. Self-preservation is the mantra which needs to be exercised while commuting, be it within city limits or on highways.

Fully agree. The problem lies with human mind and lack of common sense. This is something that can't be improved by merely training people in driving and traffic rules.

I am surprised and even little offended to see that many people here are blaming the walkers/2-wheelers or other vehicles crossing the road but not the vehicles that are approaching the intersection on the highway. It is true that the some of the two wheelers rode recklessly, but it is also true that the drivers driving on the highway in this video are absolutely reckless.

Simple common sense says that, one can't drive fast if he can't see what is ahead on the road and what is on both sides (left and right) of the road, irrespective of whether he is driving in the city or on highway. Despite this, we have people approaching corners and intersections at very high speeds on highways. Some conveniently blame others (what do they do when buffaloes cross the road?) saying that they are not looking at right, but they easily forget that if you can't see others the opposite is also true in most cases.

I got a scare of life when I joined a highway at a badly designed junction on my Honda City from a rural road a few months back. A Volvo came out on the curved highway from nowhere at about 120 and we both have to maneuver hard to avoid the accident. The small medians on our highways won't help us to stop in the middle to check for the vehicles coming from the other direction, and one has to go though all the way to the other side while crossing. It easily takes about 15 to 30s to cross a highway and if people are driving at 120KMPH on the highway, one crossing the highway have to account for vehicles that are about 500m to 1 km from the intersection which is nearly impossible.

The only solution I could see is that, the vehicles slowing down while approaching the curved sections and intersections. I sincerely hope that people start doing giving priority to lives over reaching home fast.

Drive safe,
Mohan.

[devrajman]

A little off topic,

However i see multiple instances where cars could not maneuvered at nick of time instead of directly hit the obstacle.

It reminds of classic phenomena called : Target Fixation

Basically, you hit the object you wanted to avoid!
Recommend everyone to spend 5mins understanding and evaluating yourself on how agile are you...

There are lots of articles and video on this topic.
Team-BHP thread on similar topic : http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/street...blindness.html

Very strange to see, some truck drivers showcased avoiding Target Fixation in the same video.

[Rajeevraj]

Originally Posted by devrajman

A little off topic,

However i see multiple instances where cars could not maneuvered at nick of time instead of directly hit the obstacle.

It reminds of classic phenomena called : Target Fixation

Another factor here that prevents that last second maneuverability could be the lack of ABS. With the sudden braking, even if the driver did have the reflex for that split second maneuver, lack of ABS would mean that the wheels get locked and not respond to the steering maneuver by the driver.

[pravinkenator]

Boy o Boy. I travel on this road at least thrice a month.

But what I have noticed off late is that on most of the crossings, the locals have installed speed breakers or I must say mini mountains ! And, they are freaking huge. I remember many a cars get their bellies scratched (including mine !)

Anyways, I think I will need to pay more attention while driving on this stretch.

Thanks for sharing.

Originally Posted by Gotham_City

Saw this video compiling accidents on some highway in India.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v...type=2&theater

This freaked me out completely. Barring a few cases where visibility of the turn was blocked, everyone else looked like on a suicide mission. If this is how we drive, I am sure India will never leave the pole position in accident deaths.

Part of the blame also lies with the design. Must say, it takes a real dimwit designer to plan an intersection bang in the middle of a curve.

[msdivy]

One more video of accidents at a junction. It has some tips for newbies in the end:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=605007409594289

[Vikki@Hyderabad]

Just came back from a trip to Leh; all the junctions in the video are on Hyderabad-Adilabad-Nagpur stretch.

[JoseVijay]

While returning on my recent trip from Chennai, we stopped at one big village near Ongole. We were just watching how people were crossing a junction on the 4 lane road on their Bicycles, Bikes. It was scary. They don't have regard for their life. Every one thinks the other will stop or slow down. Pedestrians were more sensible in crossing the road but not people on bikes and bicycles.

I had goose bumps just watching all this for 2 mins. Couldn't stand there any more and we resumed our journey towards Hyderabad.