.... By the way, my Palio SDX has completed 10000 kms on this trip. Its all too dirty and it deserves a wash.
Only sad thing I witnessed during the entire trip was an accident we saw that had happened less than 5 minutes ago after the Khambatki Tunnel (
Two killed, 3 hurt in accident near Khambatki tunnel - Times Of India). Just after the tunnel, its a decently steep decline and on top of it a 'S' curve. We suddenly finish the first half of the 'S' curve and see a small mob gathered. At first, I thought some trouble happening, then I saw the flipped sedan and knew something serious. We stopped by, the people were just been removed from the car and placed at the side. One of them lay a few feet ahead, clearly dead with blood all over and his face was badly defaced. The others did not have any visible injuries, but appeared totally unconscious/dead. Some locals and drivers took charge of the road to divert traffic to the left of the road since the mangled car was at the right side. Me and my friends offered help, by then a Qualis and an Indica already had offered help and the Qualis was parked at the right side of the road before the crash. Oncoming traffic was above average, no matter what, most vehicles would be coming at at-least 50-60kmph and on the second half of a 'S' curve.
I stood on the left side of the road (the occupants of the car were being lifted and put to the Qualis), and after analyzing the entire scene, I just told my friend that the entire scene looks like a bigger disaster waiting to happen. It looked too obvious for me. Any vehicle taking the second half of the S turn could crash into the Qualis and the people around it because of the blind spot. I was telling him, especially the truckers would have a difficult time to slow down at the accident spot.
Just when I told this to my friend, in less than 10 seconds, there came 2 fully loaded trucks, one on the center of the road and one on the extreme right lane and some 50 feet behind the center truck. They were at at least 60-65 kmph. The center truck fellow noticed the mob and the person flagging down to slow traffic and he braked and was moving slowly. The truck on the right was in a real bad blind spot and realized the situation only when less than 30-50 feet and he braked hard and locked wheels for couple of seconds, he seemed to be a seasoned and experience driver, while the wheels were locked, I am sure he realized that the truck would no way stop on time. If he hung on to the brakes, he would have crashed into the Qualis and the death toll would have gone much higher. The truck itself could have gone turtle. He let go of the brakes and swerved dangerously towards left and tried to sneak between the slow moving truck in the center lane and Qualis at the right. He had no choice. In this melee, he scraped the Qualis with the trucks right rear and also scraped the center lane truck with its left rear. It was a miraculous escape. It would have been a huge disaster. It almost got my heart in my mouth. I and my friend got recalled of Final Destination. I said something and it happened in just 5-10 seconds.
Accident car was badly mangled and couldn't make out which car it was. I could see the Toyota badge. I think it could have been the Toyota Etios, may be without ABS and air bags. Still hard to ascertain what caused the topple. The driver may have zoomed from the tunnel and taken the 'S' turn, but should have been little slow on second half of the 'S' turn just because of the first curve. My opinion was, he was speeding at around 110-120 at the tunnel, was at 90-100 at the first curve and suddenly might have realized he is too fast to complete the 'S' turn and braked hard while trying to complete it. The wheels could have locked causing the car to topple multiple times. Since they were returning from a temple, chances of DUI is less. Being a weekend and young people, no one can say. If and only all occupants had worn seat belts...