Koramangala accident: 7 people crammed in 5-seater car, none wore seat belt; airbags didn't open

The Audi Q3 which met with a fatal accident in Koramangala in the early hours of Tuesday was packed with seven people, although its seating capacity is just five, police quoted eyewitnesses as saying.

In hindsight, it was this overcrowding that failed the luxury car’s safety mechanism, which eventually caused the accident that claimed all seven lives.

Karunaa Sagar, son of the DMK’s Hosur MLA Y Prakash, was at the wheel. Sitting next to him were two women. The other four passengers were seated at the back.

Except for Sagar, no one had the chance or the space to wear and adjust the seat belt. “It’s evident that all other passengers were sitting in an intensely uncomfortable position,” a traffic police officer investigating the case said.

But Sagar wasn’t wearing the seat belt either, and the airbags did not open as a result, the traffic police have determined.

Based on a review of CCTV footage, police have determined that the car was travelling at more than 100 kilometres per hour.

Also read: MLA's son among 7 killed in major accident in Bengaluru's Koramangala

An officer explained: “The road was completely empty at that hour. The driver may have been egged on by his co-passengers to go fast. He ended up losing control of the car.”

The car hurtled towards the newly laid footpath, smashing its access-control iron bollards and ploughing into the wall of a bank. The wall just cracked. The car didn’t stop at that. It bounced back five to six feet after hitting the wall, and its tyres and other parts came back rolling onto the road. At least one person sitting at the back was flung out. The traffic police had to use a crane and an earthmover to remove the mangled car from the wall.

While speeding and driving without seat belt were the obvious causes of the accident, police haven’t ruled out the possibility that the driver and other passengers may have been intoxicated by alcohol or illicit drugs.

B R Ravikanthe Gowda, Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic), who visited the accident scene, said the investigation would cover all possible angles.

“The autopsy report can only tell us about the cause of death but it cannot confirm intoxication. We have sent the victims’ blood samples for forensic examination. We hope to be able to determine if anyone or all of them were under the influence of alcohol or drugs,” he told DH.

While RTO records show that the car was registered in the name of the Hosur MLA’s family business, police are also investigating if the person at the wheel had a valid driving licence.

The case has been registered under IPC sections 297 (rash and negligent driving) and 304A (causing death by negligence).

Gowda declared that the course of the investigation would be determined by what experts say about speeding and intoxication.

A team of officials from the RTO, the Public Works Department and the traffic police would visit the accident scene and investigate if the accident was triggered by any engineering defects, he said. “At the same time, our officers will look into the traffic angle,” he added.

Gowda said he hoped their probe could give some lessons to road users. “We cannot put a dead person on trial, but we can get an overall picture of what caused this deadly, ghastly accident,” he added.