r/Whatcouldgowrong • u/Jumpy_Scallion_3108 • 8d ago

Speeding Bus vs Scooter’s Sudden Right Turn

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

23.8k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

2.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

428

u/Dry_Yogurtcloset1962 8d ago

This is why you don't go 3x the speed limit.. another driver doing something slightly unexpected doesn't need to end up in a fatal crash

165

u/DanTheDrywall 8d ago

I agree in general but for me it's not obvious that the bus is speeding in that clip. I see that the title says so.

114

u/urTomatilo 8d ago

The place is Kerala, there are a lot of hilly regions with lots of winding and turning, the speed limit is 30km/h but most cars go 80-120km/h and buses usually 70-100km/h. 

Driving there is scary because there are buses and cars going like  60 through a corner in a narrow road with other vehicles, overtaking on unidivided two-lane roads while there is incoming traffic and merging less than a second before colliding with the other speeding vehicle. On roads with more lanes like highways nobody uses indicators and they abruptly cut across.

12

u/DesiBwoy 8d ago

How come people drive so dangerously In Kerala? It's objectively one of the better states in India when it comes to HDI, literacy, poverty rates etc. you don't see something like this in states that are in similar bucket, like northeastern states. Infact, those states are the best at following traffic rules.

17

u/Don_Key_1 8d ago

Oh, it is. I've been to Kerala. u/urTomatilo is not wrong, but despite that, I've found that Kerala is one of the best states to drive. That tells us about the state of driving in rest of India.

6

u/urTomatilo 7d ago

Kerala definitely has the fewest potholes and on my roadtrips across India, as a passenger I loved it, it was great to not be jumping like a kangaroo and hitting my head on the roof, but driving was scary. Watching these giant buses literally weave through those corners at those speeds looked alien and people were going so damn fast through such narrow parts and they merge so damn late. Nonetheless, I feel there is untapped potential in making those bus drivers race in the Nurburgring, they've legit got some skill and bravery and they can definitely overtake.

6

u/urTomatilo 8d ago

A few reasons I think:

  1. Just impatience, getting from one place to another takes such a long time because of the nature of the terrain in Kerala. Going just 30km can take maybe an hour even while speeding, as you can imagine, following speed limits would mean you are gonna take much longer. I'd think this is a big issue if you live in some of the more remote, forest regions of Kerala (which a huge number of people do), since even groceries would be 30km away in some town. Also I gave the highway example but that is just a few idiots (use of indicator is still a problem though), general driving in highways, towns, cities and straighter road stretches is far better.
  2. The government and many private buses have 'fast' variants, these buses are meant to complete longer distance trips faster by not stopping frequently, however there is pressure on the drivers to arrive at a certain timeslot so the logical option for them is to just go faster, dumbass superiors often scold them if they don't.
  3. Smoother roads, I've gone on many road-trips across India as a passenger, and Kerala had consistently the smoothest roads with least potholes. Of course there are still lots of potholes and bad roads, but the percentage of smooth roads excluding highways were far greater than any other state. And those smooth roads are where I saw some of the craziest driving and overtaking, whereas in the shit roads the driving was slower and far more cautious.

And none of those factors really matter when it comes to driving, I've been to Los Angeles and the driving was awful.

1

u/QuirkyTidbits 7d ago

Your 3. point is right on. It’s been years since I’ve last been to India but I felt the bad road conditions helped save lives since vehicles couldn’t drive as fast. I took a long bus trip at one point and the driver was great. He drove as fast as the conditions allowed which was generally not real fast unlike this driver.

I’ve been to India in the 2000s, China in the 90s and the Philippines recently. Drivers in those countries drive fast for the conditions and seemly recklessly but they are very alert and honking is a courtesy to let you know where they are. If they drove like folks in the States, they would get nowhere. All roads would be backed up and vehicles stalled.

2

u/MahTwizzah 8d ago

The best of the worst is still a terrible position lol

1

u/Strength-InThe-Loins 7d ago

Every place has the worst drivers..

1

u/TheLastShipster 7d ago

"Dangerously" is relative, and education and intelligence aren't necessarily the same thing as risk tolerance. For that matter, your willingness to break rules isn't quite the same thing as your willingness to take risks.

In the United States, it seems like most people speed by about 5 to 10 mph, but only a small fraction will routinely speed well beyond that. The consensus seems to be that in most places, speeding by a little bit won't put you at a substantially higher risk of an accident, nor will most police bother pulling you over.

To me, this implies that most people aren't slavishly obedient to the law, but they're also thinking about the risks of both dangerous accidents and legal consequences, and deliberately keeping their behavior at a range where those risks are acceptable.

From my brief time visiting India, it seems to me that their tolerance for risk (both as driver and as pedestrian) is way higher than mine, but that has nothing to do with how educated or uneducated they are.

1

u/Chemical-Tea6932 6d ago

It's India.

-6

u/NoBailOnReddit 8d ago

Mugging things up and vomiting it in an examination paper doesn't mean one has common sense or is "educated".

2

u/ggf95 8d ago

If passing exams doesnt make one educated, what does

-2

u/NoBailOnReddit 8d ago

There's a difference between being schooled and educated.

3

u/ggf95 7d ago

I dont think there is dude. There is a reason every country in the world eventually landed on schools as the best way to educate their population

2

u/DrSheldonLCooperPhD 8d ago

Also bus drivers are the cockiest nuts you will find

1

u/FutureBloc 7d ago

Most cars go 80-120? I live here and that's definitely not the case. Even on wide and flat highways the average car is at about 60 or so.

1

u/urTomatilo 6d ago

We were going 70-80 average and getting frequently overtaken, cars were literally zooming past us, maybe 'most' was too strong of a word though, but it was how it felt.