Never ever borrow a bike.. and if by any chance if u take a small fall on it, its more painful than ever taking a huge crash on own's ride... Learning it the hard way..

Had a great idea of riding till panchgani few months back . Myself and my frn hogged on his pulsar and as we fuelled up and hit the roads. The engine was very smooth till warje, and then we had a pit stop near a road side shop for some vadapavs(Shri vada pav on pune-blore hghway) .. As we approached shirwal, on 90's I was feeling the jerk of the bike. Later on, a few kms off shirwal the bike stopped all of a sudden refusing to start up . Also found that the kicker was jammed. And when we took it to a nearby mechanic, we found that the whole engine had jammed coz the engine oil was depleashed. We had got the service done on the bike just a week before, still wondered how engine oil was over .

Lesson learnt :

Check for important things before you leave
1. Fuel
2.Engine Oil
3.Tyre pressure
4.Cash


Total damages:

7000 for re hauling the whole engine with new piston block , crank etc

some more...

1) incase if you are waiting for the traffic to clear when joining the road, and the traffic clears up, and there is some space between you and the corner of the road for some jerk to sneak past and join the main road, check if someone is approaching from the inside of a turn.
Trying to explain via ASCII art below... The \ is your bike waiting to join the road. The (dot) is the space from where the bike will come and try to join the road.

```````````````````

`````| . \ |`````


2) when waiting for the traffic to clear, so that you can join the main-road and the traffic clears up, check the front of the bike if there are any pedestrians crossing the front of your bike.
Again explaning via ASCII art... The \ is your bike. The (dots) are the pedestrians.

```````````````````
............
`````| \ |`````


2) Switch on your headlights when riding on the highway
3) Always keep your visor closed even at night (for that, keep the visor clean and if it gets scratched, get it replaced)
4) As far as possible, don't park behind the dead-center of a large vehicle. The driver will not be able to notice your from all his mirrors and he might start reversing...
5) give several short honks when you are the first one to approach a blind turn
6) Watch out for people changing lanes while turning
7) watch out for no-honking zones (i believe that the blind-turn rule overrides this one or atleast people should not build blind-turns at no-honking zones)
8) be familiar with all the traffic signs (i know that in bumper-to-bumper traffic, you cannot watch the signs, but try, when possible, to watch and be aware) http://www.karnal.gov.in/Road-Sign-complete.jpg

also dont forget to check the brakes and horn

hmm great thread and an eye opener ...

i think i could add one important thing here

Do not street race..

Amen to that . It's very easy for us to get carried away, all it takes is someone coming up to us and revving their machine for us to get our tails up and the testosterone flowing....

and unfortunately, after a crash, so does the blood

Yeah and it doesn't prove anything.

If you really want to prove something, then do it on the race-track and you'll come to know that you have a lot to learn...

i believe primarily lot of us ignore good helmets for safety.

When i got my LS2 for 3k, all my friends burst out laughing, they felt that its not about the safety gear rather the skills of the rider which protects one from an accident and that i was just being a chicken going overboard on safety.

But regardless of their remarks, i will continue upgrading my safety gear list, jackets, knee guards etc. as i have seen enough bike road accidents to get my head around this stupid notion of not spending money on riding gear.

and as many of the xbhp members have pointed out, please please donot compromise on safety just because it costs of few hundred bucks extra. Think about it from thins angle; one good helmet = 1500-3000= letting go one good bottle of alcohol/one weekend party.

Ride Well and Ride Safe

I have had a nightmarish experience on road too...
last year in december me and my two friends were on my splendor(my bad but majboori thi) and i was driving in city...
The road didnt have a divider and like any other typical Indian road and then all of a sudden a biker coming from opposite direction turned towards right and slammed right into me and our face fronts collided(wasnt wearing a helmet too)
was rushed to hospital and got multiple stitches on my face(3 even on eyelid)... Got dispatched after that
came home and noticed that i couldnt lock my jaw. so my father who also is a doctor recommended xray
Results were kinda terrifying...
crack in the mendible bone(bone under cheek)
and after ct scan report showed 7 fractures in all in which 2 were major and could leave me on liquid diet for life....
only one doctor in whole Rajasthan could fix it and my parents rushed me to Jaipur to get the plastic surgery done....
so after the surgery i am totally fine with 2 metal plates and 5 screws in my head without and cosmetic or any visual defect!
Thank you doctor for saving me...
lessons to be learnt:
-Always wear helmet
-never ride with more than one pillion
-if you ever get hurt in an accident make sure you take a precautionary xray of that part now a days hospitals will just do patti wagarah and send you home but you should take care and take a xray just in case...

As u might know in hills it is easy to drive at night compare to day times, coz u can identify the coming vehicle from far by its lights.
But be careful when going upwards, specially while overtaking, because there are some stupid riders(2 wheelers) who drive downwards with there engine off and hence no lights just to save petrol....

well congrats that you are safe....
from the injuries u had, it seems that u were also driving fast. So avoid that also.
Have a safe drive..

They are not silent.. due to rear engine you can't hear the noise if you are in front of the bus. One more thing is never ever follow them closely even at slow speeds, the way they can stop in emergencies.. you will bang into the bus, before you realize it... any HMV for that matter..

Compared to other buses then yes they are silent. They are far more refined engines but still they are not that silent. They dont make the kind of bud bud sound. They are far more powerful & overtaking them on highway wouldnt be a good decision. Afteral they have 7litres engine working. Recently a vajra bus(volvo) came from behind & i dint even notice it.

Gurgaon

If you are in Gurgaon the be extra careful when traffic light is Green.Don't assume it safe to go,
in my experiance it is safe to jump Red Light than Crossing Green Light in Gurgaon.

Cop Corruption

This happened last Saturday. Was hoping to share it with you guys, thought it might be useful, as that Saturday was the most frightful Saturday of my life in Bangalore. Dont know if this is the right place...


----Monday----
It started like this. My friend working in a company 'X'(fake name) was riding his Kerala registered Yammy FZ on Monday. He was returning from a team lunch, with his girlfriend as pillion. When he was nearing the turn towards his company, a middle-aged lady crossed the road all of a sudden. My friend(lets call him 'ALZWL' for timebeing) braked hard. Hard enough to reduce the speed to some 30-40kmph. Still, he hit this lady and she fell on the road. It was not a major accident.
ALZWL called up his friends to collect his bike, while he escorted the lady to hospital(Mistake 1). He waited in the hospital till late night, by which time the lady's family members had come. She suffered from a minor hair line fracture.
----End of Monday----

----Tuesday----
Tuesday morning, ALZWL decides to go to hospital, to check on the lady's condition(Mistake 2). At this point of time, the lady's relatives take his contact number and his KL Registered bike number, which he gives without any hesitation(Mistake 3). He finally leaves in the noon to his office.
----End of Tuesday----

----Wednesday----

----Thursday----
Thursday, he gets a call from the lady's relatives. They threaten him to pay up 1.5 lakh rupees or face police case. Inspite of having taken care of the lady, he is asked for such a big amount of money. He is shocked, however he doesnt agree to pay up. They try to negotiate, even reduce amount to 75k, but ALZWL doesnt agree. So they threaten him with case.
----End of Thurday----

----Friday----
Police calls up ALZWL's mobile and asks him to come to traffic police station with bike. He is terrified. Now he talks to his lawyer uncle, he suggests him to take another Karnataka registered bike to station. ALZWL calls me up and asks me, if I can give him my bike with all the papers, as my bike is Karnataka registered. I talk to my father and the same lawyer and ask him the consequences. He assures me, there is nothing, this is just another formality. I agree immediately, since ALZWL is a in requirement of dire help. We decide to go to Gora-Khaet(name changed with required hints) Traffic Police Station in the morning tomorrow.
----End of Friday----

----Saturday----
Somehow ALZWL gets a lawyer to come with him to Gora-Khaet TPS. We meet there. Only then we realise the seriousness of the situation. See, since the incident happened a good 3-4 days ago, a case of hit would not stand a chance. So the lady's relatives, having taken the police into confidence, wrote a complaint, which the police were about to charge with hit-and-run (it has criminal case complications) case.
Also they knew that the vehicle was not a Karnataka registered as ALZWL already told the bike number by mistake to the opposite party(lady).
So the consequences : Since it was a Saturday, ALZWL faced a charge of hit-and-run, imprisonment till he got bail(which would mean tuesday morning) and huge fee for lawyer. All this inspite of showing compassion towards the victim rather than running away and leaving the victim in pain on the road.

The traffic inspector comes. The lawyer talks to him. Finally, they reach a conclusion. Pay the inspector 25k as bribe(this includes the bribe for RTO officers, judge and everyone else involved) and get away free, where in the inspector would change the case to simple hit, ALZWL gets to walk free...

Picturing ALZWL being brought in chains to court, we decide to pay up immediately to avoid such a harsh reality. From Gora-Khaet TPS, we move to some RTO, where the officer keeps saying something or the other, but finally after all the drama, releases the vehicle.
We left my place with mine and his bike to Gora-Khaet TPS in the morning, only to return at 8 in the night, not having a single drop of water. What hurt us the most was not the hard earned money that freshers like us take months to save, but that the compassion one showed by mistake to an elder lady, picturising our own mother in that situation, getting out there to help her... Inspite of all this, ALZWL had been metted such a treatment. We were silently in our mind, cursing that lady and her family. She was PM in another IT company, and she could have easily got all her medical expenses reimbursed. But why bother playing with people who actually took her to hospital, rather than letting her rot on the road, with a silent hope that she dies silently.
----End of Saturday----


Lessons learnt:
- Whenever an accident happens, report it to police station. Even if, God-forbid, you run over someone, report it. Once you file the report, get the acknowledgement slip from police then and there itself.
- The compensation for any accident does not come from your pocket, thats why you pay insurance companies premium every couple of years. It is their headache.
- Do not run away from the incident, hit-and-run case is a criminal offence with imprisonment for a couple of years atleast.
- Take the injured to the hospital and do not succumb to pressures of the victims asking you compensation....

Me and my friend had a long conversation with the lawyer wherein he told us a number of mistakes we did. I would love to share them with you all, but now I am in office. Will write them later.

Fellow BBians, please dont get scared with the above, this is just an experience I wanted to share with you all. The level of corruption in India is awesome. I am not a social worker, come here to root out corruption, but a silent spectator, wishing that some day, my children or their children will live without this evil, wishing that helping someone should never have been such a nightmare, hoping that people still dont leave out faith in humanity.
A silent spectator, unable to hold his tears over the inhumane treatment metted out to his friend over a social just cause, which instead of being applauded, was beaten with a hit-and-run grotesque case and blood-hungry corrupt officers....