Himalayan 450 Rider Almost Plunges Into River! Surprised While Riding Fast

Proper warning signs, speed breakers, and barricades are critical in ensuring safety on our roads. In recent incidents, we saw how the absence of these resulted in crashes and mishaps. Now, a video shared on Instagram reveals how a biker narrowly escaped falling into a river. The reason here, again, was an unmarked road and the absence of barricades and warning boards.

What Really Happened?

The video shared by Kaushal Ranjan starts by showing him travelling through a narrow road, riding his Royal Enfield Himalayan 450. He is doing a speed of around 50 kph. Soon, we see him slow down and come to a complete halt. At this point, we realise why the biker stopped, and the same leaves us shocked.

The road that he was travelling ends in a few meters, and just ahead of him is a river! He is at what looks like a private jetty. This incident happened in Kerala. In some parts of the state, it is common to find such small jetties and narrow roads and paths that lead to them.

The biker then gets down, walks towards the jetty, and shows us the size of the water body. It seems to be a small river, and a country boat can be seen near the dock. The water level here, seems to be of a decent height. Text on the video explains how risky this scenario can be, at night. There are no barricades, reflectors, or markings that would possibly warn uninformed motorists and keep them safe.

Kaushal gives more details of the incident in the video’s description. He was exploring Kerala on his motorcycle when this happened. He further says that the end was marked on Google Maps as a tourist spot. The dead end and the river were thus scary.

He says that one could easily fail to stop in time and end up falling into the river at night. This will especially apply to drivers and riders who aren’t well-versed with the place- for example, visiting tourists like Kaushal himself.

Plot Twist

Though this creator shared the video online, flagging the absence of proper signboards and speedbreakers, the place actually has a board that warns road users about the abrupt ending. This can be clearly seen in the video, finished in Yellow, placed to the left of the road.

It reads ‘ The road ends here’. It is so positioned that there is enough distance left for vehicles to stop safely. The rider here seems to have missed this board. Netizens, however, did not. In comments, they pointed out the same.

What More Can Be Done Here?

Roads such as this are mostly found in rural Kerala, and are mostly used by the local residents of the place. These often run through settlements and residential areas and have low traffic density. Even with the Yellow board around, there is still some amount of risk here. A driver or rider can easily miss the board if something distracts him/her (for example, a kid trying to cross the road).

To keep users more informed and safer, stronger initiatives like installing speedbreakers ( a set of two will make people completely aware of the situation) or implementing proper markings on the road should be adopted. In this case, the road just has a solid line across it, just before it ends near the water body.

In most cases such as this, local residents often raise custom warning boards and signboards so that people don’t end up getting into trouble.