Fatal accident involving my car: How a dashcam saved me

I bought the dashcam as a reversing camera that can also come in handy during my highway runs.

BHPian ph03n!x recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Hello BHPians and forum-readers, I am going to share an experience that happened earlier this year which underlines how essential a dashcam is - I did not pen it down for a long while owing to the traumatic ordeal the incident itself was, the PTSD-ish reaction I had afterwards, as well as considering sensitivities of others involved.

And to respect the last part, I am going to keep this narrative exclusively on the thread topic - why a Dashcam is a MUST-HAVE. I will keep details to bare minimum, and only focus on -

• My vehicle and the dashcam
• The road and the Accident
• How the dashcam helped me

I will not add details about the other parties involved in this accident, or other accentuating factors that may have led to the collision. I will also not answer any questions or address speculations on this part, and I request you to not ask/ guess/ OSINT into these aspects too.

My vehicle and the dashcam

I drive a 2020 Thar - one from the first batch. And I have a 70mai rear view mirror dual channel dashcam, so that in addition to being what it is meant to be - a dashcam, it can also replace the rear view camera accessory that I was not too impressed with (initial batch, remember!). More so because I prefer the rear view while reversing to be on the rear view mirror! My ownership thread has a short write up on the 70mai camera too - it is a full HD camera that records both the front and the rear on a SD Card, and a 64 GB card can store about 6.5 hours of driving.

The Road

The route I get home to goes through a ~2.5 KM "forest" road. No, I am not in some suburb/ mountain terrain. This is in the outskirts of the city, and is more of a green patch, and is locally addressed as the forest route. This stretch comes right after a 4-lane road, which ends with a gutter-y exit into the forest road, where one will have to brake to ~15 to 20 KMPH if you want to avoid a nasty jolt.

After the gutter-y exit, there is half a KM dead straight road - narrow dual carriage way without median or separator. This straight is then followed by left turn, and a right turn after ~350 meter - this 350 meter stretch has red stick-like lane separators, which intends to ensure that traffic in both the directions stick to their lanes in the curves to avoid accidents (this part has seen some deadly, gruesome accidents before these separators came up). Like with most intentions on our roads, this stretch with lane separator too has a side-effect - if any slow moving vehicle, like a cycle or moped, is ahead of you in these turns, there is no way you can overtake them. So some brilliant people, when they see slow moving vehicle in the left (correct) lane, switch to the right (wrong) lane before entering the curve, especially in late hours when traffic is not expected/ headlights will show the presence of oncoming traffic.

This image will serve as a reference to the Road, and the accident sequence.

The Fateful Night

Like I have done many, many times over the year when coming back from work, I enter the forest road. I notice a real bright white headlight at end of the straight that is about 500 meter ahead of me. At that time, I assumed it to be a Tata Ace (or similar sized vehicle) that is exiting the curve from the wrong side - I also notice one or two faint yellowish headlights on the correct lane, which this vehicle must be "overtaking"

I did not know that the next few seconds will be disastrous...

Let's say this image is at timed as the start/ first second of my dashcam's video. I did not have any traffic behind or besides me, and this white headlight vehicle is half a KM ahead of me, which means he will complete the curve and move back into his lane (so I assumed). So I accelerate through the gears, but at the 5th second, I see this -

I flash on my high beam as I felt the vehicle is coming straight at me - my first sense that something is wrong. In hindsight, I should have just stopped my vehicle here. The recording however shows that I have started braking (brake lights show up in he rear cam) and have slowed down almost to a crawl - am guessing I was trying to figure our what the heck is happening/ coming at me. And two seconds later this is what hurls towards me -

I am now almost standstill, expecting, praying, desperate for this vehicle to move into its track. I did not know this then - but this was 1 second before impact. It was only half a second later that I realize this is a two-wheeler - and it is headed straight to me, right at the driver side of my Thar -

I am not going to post the impact, but at this point, our fates were sealed - there is no avoiding the impact. I am not posting the impact itself, but I felt the vehicle shake like its in an earthquake. Airbags - both of them, though I was alone in the Thar - opened, and the sound and smell of that, along with what just occurred in from of me, was completely disorienting.

It was about 8 seconds before I got out of my Thar to see what has happened to person who collided with me, call the ambulance and cops. Fortunately, I was fine - I had a whiplash from the seatbelt, and my right thumb hurt because my Thar had turned in the direction of the collision violently, like how you can expect the steering to turn sharply while offroading based on the terrain. And I must have held my thumb inside the steering at the moment of impact. This is what the dashcam captured after the Thar has come to a standstill -

Here is where the third part of my narrative comes in - how the dashcam helped me. Notice the position of my vehicle (relative to the road) in the image before the impact and the one after the impact?

How the dashcam helped me

Owing to the impact, my Thar had turned sharply towards the wrong side of the road, and by the time I parked and got out, it looked like I was in the wrong lane when the impact occurred.

The person who rode the bike was briefly alive and passed away before the ambulance or cops could arrive. There was no helmet, and the impact was an a very high speed. The bike was like a mass of metal in the middle of the road, and the person riding it was on the right ledge.

The light you see in the last image was that of a person who was coming behind the bike that collided with me. He also called up the cops and ambulance.

He suggested this - please move your jeep to the left (correct lane) side of the road, this looks like you were in the wrong side and hit the bike at high speed. I saw the whole incident, and can narrate this to the police, but it is better to move the vehicle to the left. I appreciated his offer to narrate the incident to the cops, but told him I have a camera that has recorded the whole incident, and I did not want to mess with the evidence.

The ambulance arrived first and took away the injured bike rider whom they pronounced dead, and the cops also arrived. I connected my phone to the 70mai dashcam, and downloaded the video that recorded the sequence of events, and showed it to them.

This is where the dashcam proved its worth.

Considering the accident victim's stature and to avoid any kind of mob justice, the beat cops moved my Thar away from the accident spot and took me to the police station. What followed was about 12 hours of being in he police station, talking to the police personnel responsible for the area, the police's central command, sharing the video and other details with them, etc.

About 4 hours after the accident a relative of the bike rider also arrived, and asked me what happened - normally/ politely. I showed him the video too, and told him I am trying to figure out what happened too. That is the only interaction I had with the family. Couple of hours after, a FIR was filed on me by the parents (bigger vehicle), and me and my vehicle were formally taken into custody. This is not an arrest, mind you, but a formality. After all that is done, I was told I can get back home but have to return the next day.

The next day, I was explained the procedure. The vehicle will be inspected by the transport dept., and once that is done, it will be released by the cops. The family may or may not pursue a case against me/ the vehicle to claim compensations as per law. The case will proceed accordingly, and if there is no claim, it will be closed.

All through this, the cops were very professional. A few close friends, including those who came to the spot, helped me greatly to keep it together. The vehicle was released in about 5 days from the date of the accident, I was told I can carry on with what I have to do. In case it is required, I may be called to be present - but that seemed unlikely at that point.

That is how this ended. Probably.

Aftermath

I lost the ability to sleep, and whenever I do sleep, I will wake up in a hour or 90 minutes drenched with sweat.

I was repeatedly analyzing the video, asking myself why I did not stop earlier, or move half a meter to the left into the curb. I drive a Thar, it definitely could have taken the curb and even the short drop beyond the curb.

I had almost 3 seconds to react from the time I flashed and switched on the high beams and started braking gradually. Instead of assuming the opposing vehicle to correct course, I could have made allowance even if it was a very-fast moving Tata Ace (like I had initially assumed).

After a lot of counseling from friends, well-wishers and cops, I reduced beating myself up for the accident. The cops also pointed out how lucky I was - they estimated that my average speed was about 43 KMPH, while the other vehicle was averaging 135 KMPH. My Thar's damages showed how bad the impact was, and had it been any other low slung vehicle, it could have resulted in the incursion of person riding the bike and/ or the bike into my vehicle, causing injury or death to me too.

The cops - every one of them I interacted with - appreciated that I had a dashcam. The area where the accident occurred did not have CCTV coverage, and without the evidence from my dashcam, the outcome could have been very different - years of persecution, prosecution, financial burden due to compensation negotiations, etc. all could have been on the table. With the dashcam as evidence, the procedural stuff took a week or so, and the trauma is still somewhere messing with my head, the cops and legal personnel all of them highlighted that the dashcam saved me. And most of them got the link for buying one for themselves, some of them also showed me that they have installed one in their cars too.

I will update my ownership thread on my vehicle, but is it back to shape.

I bought the dashcam as a reversing camera that can also come in handy during my highway runs. Never did I ever dream that there will be an incident so huge occurring less than 3 KM from where I live, and that the dashcam will be the one that saves me out of hell a lot of trouble.

So I request each one of you. Urge you. Do not drive without a dashcam. Some cars like the XUV7OO or the Hyundai Exter come with one from the factory. I hope others too follow this, and provide dashcams as a standard equipment. Until then, please forget sunfilms, ICE, seat covers and mats - get a dashcam as your first accessory when you buy a new car.

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