[motorhead666]

Hi everyone.I had a trip with the family to my visit my uncle in mumbai who is visiting India after a year.We left from pune in our i20 at 9am yesterday morning.Everything was fine until in chembur a MSRTC Asiad bus cut me from the left to overtake and braked suddenly while doing so.The bumper of the bus hit the front left part of the car leaving a huge dent in the
body.The headlamp got away with a few scratches.Luckily no one was hurt.I caught up with the bus at the next signal and made the driver get down.The driver accepted his fault and was ready to come to the police station but a couple of passengers who were getting late got aggressive and forced the driver to get in the bus and leave.I reported the matter to the chembur police station got a copy of the complaint to claim insurance.The cop there was nice enough and spoke decently.He also wanted to know how far i live from the German bakery and if i visit there often to which i sadly replied no.Then we went on ahead with our schedule to meet my uncle.Obviously i was depressed and having a bad day to say the least.After spending the day at my uncles place we left at 9:00pm for pune via mumbai pune expressway.We had dinner at khopoli food mall and went on our way.Then just after crossing lonavala ghats another incident was waiting to happen.My brother was driving at a 90-100kmph on the right most lane as there were few vehicles around us.then suddenly we saw a guy cloaked in a blue shirt and face covered in a red winter cap(the one which covers the full face) rise up from the bushes.He threw a stone at our car aiming for the driver window.The stone hit somewhere on the car but it missed the window.It was obvious to us that there must be more people hiding somewhere and the plan was to make the driver crash and then loot the passengers.So we never looked back and headed on our way.I called the emergency contact number which is displayed on boards all accross the expressway.The guy answering the call was very laid back about the incident.I told him the approximate spot of the incident and he said he ll send someone to check.He never bothered to get into details about it and hung up.We stopped at the toll booth and saw that the stone had missed the driver window and broke the door handle instead.Cant think of anything else to do except typing this as i cant sleep anyhow.If it would have been just one of these two incidents i would have been able to have a good night sleep.But two incidents back to back really made me feel scared.Will post the pics of the crash and the broken door handle tomorrow after visiting the service center.


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[MX6]

That's a lot you went through. Why don't the morons pelting stones realise it's dangerous and can be life threatening? And above all, the authorities who sleep. Reminds me of a couplet from Mr. Sampath.
"Don't you know that it's wrong to travel without tickets?"
"I know it is wrong. I also know that only people getting caught will be punished!"

So as long as the law enforcers sleep, miscreants flourish.

[vkochar]

You have a had a ' bad car day ' !!

The Bus Incident is allright and happens BUT the stone pelting guy is dangerous, the guy at the other line should have taken action on this.

[aargee]

God!!! can't imagine people throwing stones @ car even in my wildest dreams. Now we need to start a thread of "How to handle people throwing stones at you?". Looks like we should all be driving cars like the ones in Knight Rider & Street Hawk; Probably in future all Indian cars don't need ABS & Airbags, but systems such as AOC (Automatic Object Catcher), bumper bags (to protect the front & rear from other vehicle hitting).

[buz]

The stone throwing incident has gotten me worried. I too was returning from Pune to Mumbai yesterday. And average speed was ~90kmph. And I have a penchant of driving in the rightmost lane. This is serious! Where exactly did this happen? We should get in touch with the contractor for toll collection and also report this to the press.

[hvkumar]

I think this must be a regular racket and the IRB guys who run the expressway and the police must be all part of it.

[COUGAR]

scary stuff. i remember one constable on the MP/Maharashtra border telling me how people there throw eggs on the windshield to get people to stop.

I think this must be a regular racket and the IRB guys who run the expressway and the police must be all part of it.

+1. I have always been suspicious of the guys in the highway toll naka on the Pune-Mumbai stretch. 2 of my friends, one in an (old) Zen and another Marina were also struck similarly.

scary stuff indeed

[KSM-Vtec]

this is unbelievable. cant get worst than this

[adits]

Originally Posted by buz

The stone throwing incident has gotten me worried. I too was returning from Pune to Mumbai yesterday. And average speed was ~90kmph. And I have a penchant of driving in the rightmost lane. This is serious! Where exactly did this happen? We should get in touch with the contractor for toll collection and also report this to the press.

Originally Posted by motorhead666

We had dinner at khopoli food mall and went on our way.Then just after crossing lonavala ghats another incident was waiting to happen.My brother was driving at a 90-100kmph on the right most lane as there were few vehicles around us.

I agree what happened was sad but why do you drive on the right-most lane? That lane should only be used for overtaking not cruising.

[moralfibre]

Originally Posted by adits

I agree what happened was sad but why do you drive on the right-most lane? That lane should only be used for overtaking not cruising.

Easier said than done when you consider that the other two lanes are filled with trucks all the while. Of course you are the safest in the center most lane since you have an entire lane of bandwidth on either sides to save your car from a crash.

[Lalvaz]

Really scary and sad experience. Thank your lucky stars that the stone missed the windscreen. Hope you dont have any more misfortune and insurance takes care of the dent.

[hvkumar]

Of late, the Pune expressway is becoming just another highway, especially in the nights, when trucks appear to have developed a right-propensity and often spill over to the right most lane. Least said about the ghat section when you can see 3 trucks overtaking each other, leaving no space for the smaller and faster vehicles.

[KSM-Vtec]

Originally Posted by hvkumar

Of late, the Pune expressway is becoming just another highway, especially in the nights, when trucks appear to have developed a right-propensity and often spill over to the right most lane. Least said about the ghat section when you can see 3 trucks overtaking each other, leaving no space for the smaller and faster vehicles.

The traffic came to a standstill for 10 mins on sat night. shows how bad it gets on an exp way.

[ambivalent_98]

@motorhead...That stone throwing thing sounds scary. As someone said it might be a racket which involves lots of other agencies directly or indirectly.

Originally Posted by hvkumar

Of late, the Pune expressway is becoming just another highway, especially in the nights, when trucks appear to have developed a right-propensity and often spill over to the right most lane. Least said about the ghat section when you can see 3 trucks overtaking each other, leaving no space for the smaller and faster vehicles.

Kumar Sir,
I have seen this one truck overtaking another many times especially on gradients where one truck is doing 10 kph the other is doing 12 kph. Its very irritating but then once they have started overtaking process mortal souls such as us can do little to reach out to the drivers of those levithans. Well this was troublesome in the old ghat of Mumbai to Pune , the famous "Shingroba" turn. At least twice I was behind three trucks trying to outdo one another. Its

Then about the expressway
Trucks always appear on the right side. Well "lane sense" does not prevail amongst any of our co-drivers especially on such wide well planned roads and if one is following the rules he seriously looks out of place. So in Rome do as the Romans

[motorhead666]

The first two pics are of the crash with the bus.The other is where the stone hit.I Went to the service center and filled up the claim form.The person there told me to write that both the damages occurred in the same accident as two incidents on the same day would sound suspicious to the insurance people.

@buz this happened after crossing lonavala.the signboard showed distance from pune was 50km.We thought of alerting the guys at the toll booth but since we didn't see any cop there we decided that it was useless to tell the guys working there.

@adits You are right but buses and trucks occupy the 2nd and 3rd lanes which requires you to change lanes frequently like in city driving to overtake.Still we learned our lesson and will try to keep to the middle lane as much as possible.