[hellmet]

I give this warning to EVERY driver I care for (friends and relatives) and it is this:

Never, ever, EVER, follow an autorickshaw - not one feet, not ten feet, not even a hundreed feet behind. Either OVERTAKE them (safely) or change lane to gain clear line of sight of the road ahead.

Reason: Autos are the biggest blindspots on the road - almost like a wall on the road. But what makes them dangerous (apart from their antics) is their bike-like steering that allows them to steer abruptly around obstacles leaving you exposed to the said obstacle suddenly.

I speak this with more than a decade of driving experience in the city and being in dangerous auto-created situations. I always make it a point to overtake, change lanes, or let them move further if I see an autorickshaw ahead of me.

------------------

Coming to your case - I always drive like there is no rule of law on the road (and there really isn't) - in which case it is always safe to get rid of some money than it is to get rid of my peace of mind and endanger myself to prove a point with some moron. End of the day, I need to get home in one piece. It is all that a common middle class man like me can do in this country.

[chevyman]

Originally Posted by hellmet

Never, ever, EVER, follow an autorickshaw - not one feet, not ten feet, not even a hundreed feet behind. Either OVERTAKE them (safely) or change lane to gain clear line of sight of the road ahead.

Reason: Autos are the biggest blindspots on the road - almost like a wall on the road. But what makes them dangerous (apart from their antics) is their bike-like steering that allows them to steer abruptly around obstacles leaving you exposed to the said obstacle suddenly.

Spot on. I drive a lot on the highways (over 1 lakh km on highways and never been in a scary situation, thanks to God's grace) and I always follow this rule of maintaining safe distance from the vehicle leading me to get better view of traffic ahead. I have been contemplating why I didn't follow this while the auto rickshaw was infront of me. May be because I was coming from a meeting that didnt go well and left me stressed. Plus its an absolute one way road, never expected a small scooty to intercept me at exactly 90 degrees.

[rakesh_r]

You did what's best.A small suggestion invest on a decent dash cam.
At the end of the day we need to get home safe and sound. There is no need to feel guilty.Today it was a car that hit them,tomorrow it might be a truck or a bus which,if they have learnt from this,fair enough,else god save them.
Since i live in Pune driving a car is frustrating because of the erratic 2 wheeler traffic. Pune has taught me to-
1- Stay away from lady riders,though I do know some lady riders who ride very well.
2- Rickshaws
3-Local buses
4-Cars or bikes with party stickers

PS- I just read you were driving after a stressful day,that fueled your driving abilities. When I get stressed what i normally do is,may sound funny-Goto the bathroom and vent out all the anger,at home i have a boxing bag


Note from Mod : Please use proper punctuation. Always leave a space after punctuation marks. Do see THIS THREAD before continuing. Thanks.

[manas_270]

Originally Posted by chevyman

So did I do the right thing? If not what should I have done?

I sympathize with you chevyman when you get blamed for no fault of yours & seen as the guilty party, since you own the bigger vehicle. Don't understand how this concept of "Bigger Vehicle always at fault" notion arises from irrespective of even if the smaller vehicle is on the wrong side in a one way road

As fellow bhpians mentioned, there is no right & wrong in these kind of situations unfortunately with the kind of law & instant public judgement at the accident site.

Originally Posted by rakesh_r

A small suggestion invest on a decent dash cam.

+1 to this suggestion. Chevyman, you can go through the site for reviews on various dash cams & they are pretty inexpensive these days & worth investing on. They will give you good evidence to support your case in these kind of situations & am sure the cops would back off & try to look from a logical point of view once they figure out you have video evidence.

[anvara]

Hi Chevyman,

I can sympathize with your situation that you had to encounter. Sometimes, the junta can be quite unreasonable.

On the other hand, don't you think this could have been avoided had you not been "zig-zagging" as you have mentioned?

Maybe that would have helped.

Anyway, cheers and as someone said, peace of mind beats everything else.

Take care & drive safe.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by rakesh_r

1- Stay away from lady riders,though I do know some lady riders who ride very well.

Stay away from male riders, though I have seen some riding very well.

All I can say about this gender thing is that it does make me sad to see female riders/drivers driving just as badly as the guys, and especially so when they are putting their children's lives at risk.

Otherwise, most comments on this site about "lady drivers/riders" make me so fed up I feel like leaving Team-BHP altogether.

(sorry, rakesh: your post just happened to trigger my rant, but it was one amongst many, and this is not aimed specifically at you)

[rakesh_r]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Stay away from male riders, though I have seen some riding very well.

All I can say about this gender thing is that it does make me sad to see female riders/drivers driving just as badly as the guys, and especially so when they are putting their children's lives at risk.

Otherwise, most comments on this site about "lady drivers/riders" make me so fed up I feel like leaving Team-BHP altogether.

(sorry, rakesh: your post just happened to trigger my rant, but it was one amongst many, and this is not aimed specifically at you)

No offence taken at all.I have written what I have observed. And NO I am not gender biased. As i had mentioned earlier I do know quite a few Ladies who drive/ride well.
@ Mods-Kindly delete the post if found offensive.

[Thad E Ginathom]

You say that you have written what you observed, and that you are not gender biased. It doesn't really work that way: we observer through the windows of our prejudices and biases. It's a whole big thing to think through, and, doubtless off topic to the thread, if not the site.

Believe me (I'm quite old ) --- it is not a simple matter to get to the truth of these things in ourselves, and not an easy matter to get to grips of it when we start to do so.

[luvDriving]

Originally Posted by hellmet

I give this warning to EVERY driver I care for (friends and relatives) and it is this:

Never, ever, EVER, follow an autorickshaw - not one feet, not ten feet, not even a hundreed feet behind. Either OVERTAKE them (safely) or change lane to gain clear line of sight of the road ahead. steer abruptly around obstacles leaving you exposed to the said obstacle suddenly.

Very sound advice, I must say. Let me add my own experience regarding this topic.

I had gone with a friend on my Pulsar to fetch his sister's Street bike ( she had left it at roadside after the petrol got over ). Anyway we carried a bottle and put in the required amount to take it to the petrol pump.

This was many years ago - approximately 10 years at least. We were returning home and it was around 12 noon when all school rickshaws were running around. The road which we took is a two lane road with no divider.

Now I was ahead and a rickshaw was behind me. My friend was behind this rickshaw. Just then a fully loaded school rickshaw at full speed came from ahead in my lane overtaking another rickshaw.

I swerved to avoid it and the rickshaw following me also did the same. But my poor friend never saw it coming. He was blinded by the rickshaw that he was following and he hit the oncoming rickshaw head on with a big SMASH !

Of course the rickshaw driver got away on the pretext of leaving the kids to school. Fortunately my friend was thrown away but got away with minor bruises. The Street was however considerably damaged and we had to call a tempo to take it to the garage.

Another time I was following a rickshaw at a crossroad and he abruptly swung away. Thanks to my reflexes I did the same and narrowly avoided being hit by a superfast rickshaw coming from the wrong side.

From those days, I am always wary of following these menaces and I keep my eyes on the traffic ahead of the rickshaw in addition to keeping an eye on anyone hailing him since they are also notorious for abruptly stopping or pulling over without a moment's notice !!

[noopster]

Originally Posted by rakesh_r

No offence taken at all.I have written what I have observed. And NO I am not gender biased. As i had mentioned earlier I do know quite a few Ladies who drive/ride well.
@ Mods-Kindly delete the post if found offensive.

While I am against stereotyping in general, sometimes they can be useful. There are a significant number of female scooter-riders in Pune who don't ride as well as they should, often accompanied by unrestrained children in the most awkward position. You are perfectly right to exercise all due caution when driving when you spot one of these!

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

You say that you have written what you observed, and that you are not gender biased. It doesn't really work that way: we observer through the windows of our prejudices and biases. It's a whole big thing to think through, and, doubtless off topic to the thread, if not the site.

Very philosophical, Thad But he's already apologised for the earlier comment so I guess we should move on.

[fine69]

When one is tailgating, it doesn't matter whether its a rickshaw or an 18-wheeler. If you run out of response time please don't blame the vehicle in front, follow the 2 (if not 3) second rule instead.

Any vehicle that jumps in your lane is totally at fault but if you smash into another vehicle because you were following a rickshaw, its you who is at fault.

There is one problem with bicycle & rickshaw riders (non-auto type), most of them have not driven motorized vehicles and lack a certain sense of how fast motor vehicles go, how long it takes them to stop, how much gap they need to pass through (this again varies with speed) etc. Because of all this, they exercise sudden maneuvers which look totally ok to them but to a vehicle moving at high speed its dangerous. The domino effect that their small maneuver has, they are totally oblivious to it.

As for the auto rickshaw riders, most of them are morons, I'd agree

Make your presence felt when approaching a 2-3 wheeler (motorized or not) by a quick beep or two, don't tailgate and keep calm when on road.

[prabuddhadg]

On the 12th of May, 2015, I was driving to office inside film city Mumbai, and at the last right turn before office, I was just into the turn when a motorcyclist tried to rush past, hit the front corner of my car and crashed. He got up and started calling me names. He was accusing me of not using the turn indicator - which I actually had used. I had actually seen him in the rear view mirror. As he rushed past, I turned left again on reflex and that turned the indicator off.

I shall leave aside the details of the arguments. Finally, we went to the film city security office and the security officer said either this becomes a police case or you take care of his medical expenses. I kept insisting that it was this motorcyclist who was at fault, but to no avail. Anyway, we dispersed from there.

After a couple of hours, the film city security officer gave me a call saying that the motorcyclist had a fractured rib. Expense of Rs 20k was expected.

Today I got another call from the motorcyclist's colleague saying that the expenditure was actually going to be Rs 1.5 lacs, and he asked me what they should do. I said it was not possible for me to pay and that he should file a case against me.

Now my question is, am I taking the right steps here to avoid hassle and expenditure? What is the best course of action?

[humyum]

Firstly, He was overtaking from the left, so it's his fault. Secondly, the film city security office has got nothing to do with this, you should have not insisted on anything to anyone.

Looks like the film city security officer giving you a call sounds super fishy, its neither his problem neither is he involved. You should have taken him to the police station or you should have gone yourself and filed a report against the accident.

Best course of action according to me would be to go to the police station and file a report and when that guy calls, ask him to file a case too as you would not be paying him anything. This looks like proper 'loot'. Please don't get scared, they can't do anything.

[Tanveer_2558]

Dont pay a penny, they might even try and scare you that the person is severely injured even though he might not be just to extract the best possible amount from you, use all the official ways you have, file a case, but don't pay anything, specially when you are not at fault.
A sort of similar incident had happened with a family member of mine when the biker fell on his own in front of the car, and till the time he got up with minor injuries people around thought the car behind had banged into him and so he fell,people started gathering around the car and what does the biker do? he too acts as if the car had hit him and demands a ransom for repairs to his bike and his injuries.He tried all he could for several minutes but when asked to come to the police station he preferred to sit on his bike and run away!

[streetlife]

Hi.
A similar incident had happened to me when a biker brushed one of our commercial vehicle from the left side on a left turn and fell. My driver immediately stopped the vehicle but he got a hairline fracture at the ankle. We offered him upto 15 grand even though he was at fault to settle it then, they insisted on 40k. So case was filed and a court judgement was passed to claim 1.25lakhs from the insurance after 1.5years. The case is still on for the driver though. Expected to be settled within next 6 months with a minor fine.

Only expenses to us were approx 20k in these 2 years which included hiring an advocate and chai-pani to cops. 5-6 visits to local court during the time.

My suggestion will be to negotiate it to a reasonable amount and settle it there itself. Don't include security officers, just go to the police. Do check if he really is hurt like the X-rays and medical. If they are still asking crazy money file a case as it does sounds fishy.