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Old 14th June 2005, 11:18   #1
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Love and Life

In my earlier blogs, I had written a line or two about Tata Indigo based on the experiences on my friends car.

His 5 years old love was ended by tying the knot with his lover on 10th June 2005 ( Friday). He along with his wife ( promoted to wife) took his car to attend his parents 60th wedding anniversary, slated on 12th June 2005, at a temple near Kumbakonam in Tamilnadu. He has passion in taking the car for long drives.

The 60th marriage anniversary took place on Sunday morning & started his return journey back to Chennai at 9 pm. ( Sunday). He was driving the car and his wife was the co passenger. She slept in the front seat as she was tired after 60th wedding anniversary.

At 11.30 pm near madurantakam, it was told he had slept for a while on the highways, which resulted him to hit the median of the road and the car rolled twice, hit the right hand side road, before it came to a halt crashing with a private bus coming in the opposite direction.


When the bus hit the road damaging the front right hand side post, the door got opened and my friend was thrown out. His head was broke open on hitting the road. He was dead on the spot. His wife came to know about the accident only after their car came to halt. She escaped unscratched.

My friend was not wearing his seat belt otherwise he would have been with me know.

WEAR SEAT BELT ALWAYS. DONT SAY I HAD FORGET TO WEAR IT. DO WE SAY THAT I FORGET TO WEAR MY FOOTWEAR. IT WILL COME IN PRACTICE

Last edited by Dippy : 14th June 2005 at 11:28.
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Old 14th June 2005, 12:11   #2
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hey surprise
thats really sad to hear.im sorry to hear about it and my condolences are with his family.


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Old 14th June 2005, 12:54   #3
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What a sad waste of life. My condolences to the family.
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Old 14th June 2005, 12:59   #4
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I have absolutely no words to say. Its just very sad it happened. Seatbelts save lives, please use them.
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Old 14th June 2005, 13:11   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gordon
Seatbelts save lives, please use them.
And, please don't push yourself or your car too much. Its just not worth it.

Surprise - my condolences to the family.

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Old 14th June 2005, 13:13   #6
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I am really sad to hear about the tragic loss of life of your friend. May his soul rest in peace. It is another classic case of not wearing the seat belts. Please please wear them. Seat belts are worth it, though it may be an inconvenience initially. You will definitely get used to it the more you use it.

I am also sad to hear about an accident involving my neighbour's relative on the busy Bangalore-Mysore road on his Maruti Omni. His omni was hit by a truck and he and his wife who were travelling to Mysore in the omni were very critically injured. I came to know just today that both of them are thankfully out of danger. I however have no idea whether they were using seat belts or not. But frontal collision in an omni in most of the cases will be very terrible.

Last edited by deepakhon : 14th June 2005 at 13:14.
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Old 14th June 2005, 13:16   #7
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I think its better if the passenger beside the driver doesn't sleep.
It makes a huge difference. If the passenger sleeps, the driver can get bored and may even doze off. This is serious. It can happen to anyone on a long drive.
If the passenger is awake, he/she can keep a watch on the driver and can also talk to him and keep him/her awake. So always be fresh and have a nice sleep before going out for a loooong distance drive.
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Old 14th June 2005, 13:20   #8
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really sad that this had to happen.this also shows that its necessary to keep talking to the driver when on long drives ,so he remains alert .also small breaks of about 10-15 mins after 2-3 hours of driving is really helpful.
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Old 14th June 2005, 13:37   #9
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really sad....

a few things which I try and follow (some are a little extreme) but what the heck....
1) as a rule, avoid night driving as much as possible on the highways... city driving is fine.. but when on the highways.. keep 9-10 pm as the upper limit.

2) THE PERSON ON THE PASSENGER SEAT NEVER SLEEPS..... NEVER... my folks/friends do get pissed off at times.. but then.. they understand too....

3) lastly never push urself... know you capacity and undertake drives only within ur capacity.. plan accordingly... filter in atleast 10 min break every hr of driving or 20 mins every 2 hrs.. but take a beak necessarily after 2 hrs....

we had done a mumbai-goa road trip a few years ago.. and it was night trip due to lack of travel time... since the night drive wsa unavoidable... we deputed 2 guys in the front seat who would constantly chat with the driver ... and keep him alert... small measures and sometimes silly bordering on Paranoia... but then... all it takes is a SECOND!!!
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Old 14th June 2005, 13:50   #10
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it is a great sorrow to hear such incident. my condolence to the family.
let us make it a habit to wear seat belt every time we get inside a car.
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Old 14th June 2005, 13:54   #11
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my heartfell condolences with u and his family.

i agree with all when they say, the person in front seat should never sleep.

we had taken a trip from kodai to rameshwaram. while coming back it was pretty late and my mom sitting next to the driver kept on singing songs while we joined her one by one. the driver being a tamil coudnot understand a word of hindi but the singing atleast helped him not to sleep.

shubbhi

Last edited by manaa45 : 14th June 2005 at 13:56.
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Old 14th June 2005, 16:30   #12
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My condolences to the family.

Guys, please drive safely... and yes seatbelts are needed for speeds as low as 20 kmph.
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Old 14th June 2005, 16:50   #13
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The passenger

When we see or hear about an accident and/or loss of life only then we think about our trysts with fate. today, we are pledging the use of seatbelts, and how many of us will bother to fasten the seatbelts tomorrow morning?

Death is a co-passenger for all of us.

My deepest condolences to the family.

Last edited by sandeepmdas : 14th June 2005 at 16:51.
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Old 14th June 2005, 16:59   #14
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Oh boy, this reminds me of the close call we had when we hired a Qualis taxi from Bbay to Shirdi.

One look at the driver and i knew it wasn't gonna be a peaceful journey. The dude was so tired that half way into the journey, the Qualis began to veer to the other side of the road.

This happened some 3-4 times. On the 5th time, he almost took an oncoming Omni off the road and that was it. We made the guy stop, i took to the wheel, reached Shirdi and immediately called the Bbay office for a replacement driver.

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Old 14th June 2005, 18:10   #15
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Sad and unnecessary loss. Night driving on Indian highways are only to be done if absolutely essential, it's just not worth the risk.
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