And that’s why overtaking from the left is so dangerous!

Overtaking on the left is fraught with dangers. A lot of lives have been lost because of this, and many people have been left maimed for life. A Youtuber on a superbike found it out the hard way while overtaking from the left. And the entire sequence of events were caught on video. Here, watch it for yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSJay7mTJtQ

The Youtuber in question was on a Honda CBR 650F, an in-line four superbike that is capable of speeds in excess of 200 Kph. In the video, the biker can be seen doing insane speeds of over 150 Kph on a public highway somewhere in India before he decides to slow down for a toll booth. As two wheeler riders need to use the left-most, unmanned lane at toll booths, the biker swiftly changes lanes and gets into the left-most lane of the road.

Suddenly a Hyundai Elite i20 driver decides to move to the extreme left of the road, taking two riders – one on what looks like a Yamaha R3 and the other on the Honda CBR 650F  by surprise. Both riders brake hard, lose control and crash. The rider on the Yamaha R3, which doesn’t have ABS, is the first to lock up his brakes and skid. The biker on the CBR 650F, who’s recording the entire set of events, crashes into the skidding R3 and falls, despite having ABS.

There are multiple reasons for this crash.

1. Even on the left-most lane of the road – almost on the shoulder – the bikers were doing about 80 Kph, which is quite high. Toll booths often see a lot of parked vehicles on the road’s shoulder, and doing such speeds exposed the bikers to additional risks.
2. The Hyundai i20 Elite driver cut into the shoulder of the road quite sharply, and obviously without checking his mirror.
3. Overtaking vehicles on the left comes with dangers, as this video just indicates. Always overtake from the right, and with adequate warning. Should you have to overtake from the left, slow down adequately so that you can control the motorcycle if you’ll have to make sudden direction changes or brake hard.