[madan80]

you are fortunate to have walked out with some rather minor physical injuries.

the karnataka stretch is quite something, and the road become silky smooth in the andhra pradesh section. I did the route in september...

[khan_sultan]

@Ghostrider: Thank god you all are safe and good that you were wearing seat belts. The injuries will heal soon.

Originally Posted by VJ_MAVRICK

... having a stock set of tyres (From the pics it looks so) and cruising @ 120KMPH, now thats a bad idea to ever hit that speed .....

Originally Posted by ghostrider

... Stock tyres are always a bad idea at those speeds, I totally agree.....

I have a question here for my self learning. Why is it wrong to cruise at 120 on stock tyres? What's the issue here?

I believe that the stock tyres would be branded/rated tyres for at least 180 kmph speed or so. If yes, then what's the issue?

Cheers,

[phamilyman]

Just my VDI thought process here, but its not the speed that they can safely cruise at, but how they stop from that speed that matters too!

[anjan_c2007]

Originally Posted by ghostrider

Guys.... sorry I've been off the boards for a while, but a month ago I was in a massive accident.

Happened travelling from Bangalore to Kolar, on the national highway.
Single undivided carriageway, massive pothole, the friend that was driving swerved to avoid it. Probably the worst thing to do, but it's completely instinctive, so no blame there.

The hard swerve sent us into an uncontrolled skid, and then to our collective horror, the car began to flip. We were doing around 120 when it happened, so the car was still carrying a hell of a lot of momentum when the flips started... we flipped a total of 6 times. I'm not kidding... for me time kinda slowed down during the whole thing, so I counted the flips.

The 6th flip took us off the highway and down about 40 feet into the fields, where the car came to rest on its right hand side. I was in the front left passenger's seat, and hanging from my seatbelt. Had to unhook myself and crawl out the front left window, which had gone.

All said and done, all three of us in the car were lucky to walk away from this one alive. I don't know how any of us survived, to be honest.

Ive got one thing to say to everyone on this forum... PLEASE buckle up. Whether you're just driving around the corner to the store or whether you're on a highway. The fact that we had our seatbelts on saved our lives, no question about it.

great news ghostrider- I mean your escaping unscathed from such a gory mishap.Sometimes one flip takes its toll and you have had six. The Tata Indigo has saved you and your friends- hats off to the car's build quality , whatever Tata critics may have to say about the niggling mechanical and electrical problems posed by Tata cars.
I had driven on this stretch during June 2008. It is the Bangalore- Chennai highway on which they are chopping trees to widen the road.
Seat belts are marvellous! We must use them!

[Strangerintown]

Ghostrider - that is one awful accident! Thank god you guys got off relatively unscathed. And yes - great that you were all in seatbelts . I guess even rear passengers should make that a practice, atleast on highways. I never see anyone wearing a seatbelt on the rear seat in India.

BTW - what's with all you "ghostly" guys? Just the other day I saw in another thread that holyghost had flipped his safari and now this happens. Seriously - makes one wonder..

[Jayabusa]

Brother, I am very happy that all of you survived an accident of this magnitude. You should be very grateful to God for saving your lives.
And I repeat what you said, "Always buckle up".

[aaggoswami]

You are seriously lucky to survive along with the other two passengers.
No offence, but then the correct method of driving is to go into the pothole unless it is very, very large, rather than swerving. Its better to break the rim and damage suspension or underbody than meeting with this near fatal crash. This swerving in low slung cars like Baleno, Lancer, Civic, etc is fine, but not with tall cars.

I feel that the car has never went in for rollover crash test. The damage should be less, IMO, but still its quite strong to take a beating.

Originally Posted by phamilyman

ghastly. I am impressed with the structural strength of the cage. I'm honestly not sure of the same for my VDi :(

Time to slow down myself on the expressway.

Dont worry. In " Accidents Pics " thread, another user posted the image where the Swift Dzire had overturned. The A-pillars did not crumple.
Swift's interior fit and finish and build quality is not good, but the chassis is strong.
Also never swere rather brake hard. Swere only when an absolutely huge pothole is there.

[akas_chauhan]

Yeah that was a horrific experience and i'm glad all of you guys are OK now.

[akshay4587]

Originally Posted by khan_sultan

@Ghostrider: Thank god you all are safe and good that you were wearing seat belts. The injuries will heal soon.






I have a question here for my self learning. Why is it wrong to cruise at 120 on stock tyres? What's the issue here?

I believe that the stock tyres would be branded/rated tyres for at least 180 kmph speed or so. If yes, then what's the issue?

Cheers,

@ghost rider thank god you are safe
get well soon.

As said they should be capable to shed the speed as well.
in india,speed rating hardly matters since vehicles capable of not more than 12km/hr and 120km/hr all share same space.
so its better to be safe even with better tyres(i:e cruise at sane speeds).

[unni.ak]

Good to know that you are safe ghostrider. This is the second roll-over accident I remember reading here. One was a Safari and this one now. No, I'm not doing any Tata bashing. Both vehicles took brunt of the accident and people are safe, thats all that matters.

OT: HolyGhost was in the Safari accident, and ghostrider in this!! All Ghosts are having a bad time. NO offence meant. (Just working late shift and brains going all over the place.)

[akroy]

Looking at the car like Indigo I can say that it was indeed a bad crash and now you might have learnt the importance of the tiny seat belt. It is the thin line between life and death.

Anyway if you were at 120kmph then you were overspeeding and swarving is dangerous. It is better to have bent rim than this.

Abhi

[HappyWheels]

@GhostRider,

Thanks God that all of you came out with minor injuries from this accident. And the best part was that you guys had the presence to buckle up, which definitely did a lot of saving.

Do take care and hope your friend has recovered well from the incident.

As your said, when one sees a pot hole, the reflex action is pure survival and sometimes not the best.

Originally Posted by Tejas@perioimpl

...With 6 flips, the car showed good rollover resistance as well. A M800 would have been crushed.

Originally Posted by white_vdi

your cars looks to have withstood the crash relatively well...

True; with 6 flips @ 120kmph, the body had stood well.

[goandude]

120 kmph on indian roads is not a very wise thing to do. if not potholes (in this case) there could be children, animals, other idiot drivers. So I always keep a limit of 100 kmph but usually do 80 -90 on NH roads. The point of seat belts has been underlined here. So has the build quality of Tata cars.

[VJ_MAVRICK]

@khan_sultan: Shahnawaz bhai doing high speeds of around 120KMPH on stock set is always dangerous (its not @ all advisable) as it completely negates effective control and overall stability of the vehicle and also if you have a flat tyre in a stock tubed one, it will completely throw the vehicle offtrack which does not quite happen in a tubeless tyres of high grade. This is based on my personal experience.

[Guna]

Originally Posted by goandude

120 kmph on indian roads is not a very wise thing to do. if not potholes (in this case) there could be children, animals, other idiot drivers. So I always keep a limit of 100 kmph but usually do 80 -90 on NH roads. The point of seat belts has been underlined here. So has the build quality of Tata cars.

@goandude
While it is safe to drive within limits, this 'safe limit' also varies from car to car as they have different levels of safety, stopping power, stability and overall control.
When I was driving matiz, my usual speed on highway was about 90kmph(occasionally 100 when the streach was open). This went to 100 when I switched to NHC and 110 in Fusion. Now in Forester it goes to 120 even without realising.