Yo!
ToyCar didn't disappointed on its maiden long journey. I was contemplating between Shimla/Nainital/Lansdowne, and finally chosen Lansdowne to test the car's ability to tackle rough roads, narrow stretches, steep inclines and sharp descents.
Since it's an AMT, and a first for me too, I was a bit worried. But it does handled everything thrown at it with aplomb.
I cruised at 120-
ish speeds for considerable time and it never felt out of power. It touched 140 very easily with its 3-pot engine making a nice sound.
Also met with an accident (while doing considerably slower speeds we were doing earlier), where God and ABS together worked to bring us and the other party out of it without any major harm.
A cyclist jumped on the smooth highway from a cut in median, where a motorcyclist was waiting for me to cross first. But as destiny had it for him, he (bicyclist) continued to cross the road pedaling his ride a bit faster. But a 1+ ton car doing some 80-ish speed is not easy to stop. I jumped on the wider pedal with my full weight and force, and it vibrated with its full vigor and I managed to turn the car right-side, towards the cut in median as bicyclist was going from my right to left.
Car shed its speed perfectly and hit him on his rear wheel with my car's front left end. Somehow reflexes helped me in pulling the hand brake at the very last moment and it skidded its rear wheels a bit to turn it slightly more to its right. It stopped right adjacent to the motorcyclist who was waiting calmly for us to cross first.
Bicyclist fell down on road without any injury, but his luggage (a loaded plastic crate) fell down on my car's bonnet and made a good dent. Bumper had few scratches as well. BUT, nothing happened to human life. Neither to us, nor to bicyclist or motorcyclist. Public gathered and fortunately everyone started shouting at the bicyclist (!!). I took the deepest breath of my life and felt 'actually' relaxed for the first time
D), and ran to help him up on his feet, made him sit on the divider and moved out quickly on suggestion of few senior-aged persons in the crowd.
After that, it was a super-cautious drive to-fro and we forgot about it for the rest of journey.
Lesson learnt:
Any another car coming into my family will be having ABS+EBD and Airbags for sure.
Feeling good to opt for this tiny li'l car with all safety features available in this segment.
Thank you God, without your help we would have not came out of that incident unscathed.
