Team-BHP - An unfortunate sunday

Well, it started of as one of the routine weekend drives we normally do. It turned out to be neat little disaster by the time we were finished. It was a bright sunday morning and we thought we would go and do some good fast driving. The car was an old shape honda city vtec and we were three in the car. It all went off well initially and we were enjoying the drive, doing neat speeds and the car taking things well. Before I forget, the place was mandardevi ghats, a lovely piece of tarmac that winds its way up the side of a hill. The landscape was dry and the whole place had a desolate and burnt look about it. We had planned to test the intercom that we had built for the rally and we did quite a bit of fine tuning with the intercom. We were driving around with helmets on, to test the intercom and once we were done with it, we took the helmets off and took a breather. Had chai at a local tea stall and decided to proceed on our way.

The roads looked an absolute monte carlo copy and coupled with the desolation around enticed us into doing a small pace notes exercise. We did one pass of a two km stretch with lots of winding turns and prepared our notes. Then decided to hit the same patch a little fast at road speeds. A few turns into the stretch it happened. A medium left turned tight and it was over an undulation although a gradual one. I hit the turn at close to 80 clicks, the car takes off over the undulation and then the turn suddenly tightens and we have no contact patch to turn. A situation where we are going straight over and falling off the hill. I somehow manage to get the car turned in a little but we still reach the gradient on the opposite side of the road. The car is already over the gradient, but sideways. More gas and we drive straight at a tilt angle on the gradient parallel to the road and then somehow manage to climb the gradient with full gas and then the car swerves and hits an embankment at full clip and comes to a dead stop. A good 40 feet drop welcomes us right where we stopped. Front passengers have the seat belts on, so we dont even budge. The backseat passenger surprisingly just gets pushed around comfortably and nothing at all happens to anyone.

It is a different story with the car though. All kinds of things have gone wrong. The engine was still running but the front right has suffered bad damage and the front grill had come inside because of the impact. Surprisingly, we could drive the car, even though with a big soundtrack for company. We decided to retrace back to pune to fix the car. After doing 30 odd kms more, the car suddenly stopped. We got a tow truck to get us to honda service and the car went straight for fixing. Radiator, condensor, front beam, engine casing...all kinds of things suffering damage. The bill when it was done came to a whopping 1.4 lacs. Thankfully, nothing happened to anyone inside. So much for a sunday drive. A few pics attached.

Hard luck there. Glad to see no one is hurt.

Quote:

Originally Posted by megazoid (Post 1131693)

A medium left turned tight and it was over an undulation although a gradual one. I hit the turn at close to 80 clicks, the car takes off over the undulation and then the turn suddenly tightens and we have no contact patch to turn. A situation where we are going straight over and falling off the hill. I somehow manage to get the car turned in a little but we still reach the gradient on the opposite side of the road. The car is already over the gradient, but sideways. More gas and we drive straight at a tilt angle on the gradient parallel to the road and then somehow manage to climb the gradient with full gas and then the car swerves and hits an embankment at full clip and comes to a dead stop.

Could anyone translate the above paragraph into English please?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bass&Trouble (Post 1131743)

Hard luck there. Glad to see no one is hurt.

Could anyone translate the above paragraph into English please?

Quote:

What was supposed to be a medium turn turned out to be a tight one. There was a change of height on the road during the turn and he hit it at high speed, launching the car into the air for a moment. When he realized the turn was tighter than he anticipated, the car was airborne and thus couldn't be steered. He expected the car to go straight off the road and down the hill.

However, his steering input has some effect and the car changes direction a bit, but too late. The car reaches the other side of the road, sliding. A lot of pedal and the car manages to stay on the hill and gets back on the road. However, it goes straight into an embankment (you know, cement thingies built at the sides) and comes to a stop.

I hope that's a proper translation ;)

Good that everyone came unhurt and the way you wrote it says about your driving skills

After reading tons of scary experiences here, even the uninitiated drivers like me were educated on how to act during such scenarios. Mentally many of the regulars at our forum would have prepared to "think and act" during such situation rather than getting panicked. Also its important to understand that real time situations are a different ball game and keeping cool is definitely not walk in the park... I am preparing myself to think before natural reaction of standing on the brakes (Hopefully we dont end up there :) )