A Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara turned turtle at Lansdowne Road on Thursday evening, disrupting evening traffic on the Minto-Park bound flank for some time.
The driver of the vehicle managed to come out of the car unhurt, police said. He was wearing a seat belt.
The police suspect one of the tyres had burst, overturning the vehicle. However, it is still not clear how it could overturn on a rainy evening when traffic on the busy Sarat Bose Road was anyway slow.
Several eyewitnesses said the way the car swirled and turned over, other vehicles or pedestrians could have been injured had any of them been in close proximity.
“It was sheer luck that there were no cars or pedestrians near the vehicle when the tyre burst,” said an eyewitness.
The police said the car turned upside down with a loud thud before it came to a standstill.
The car was moving along Lansdowne and heading towards Minto Park.
The stretch where the car turned over remains busy on weekday evenings.
The police said the evening rain had slowed the traffic and may have been the reason why the car did not swirl as much as it would have at high speed.
“Had the car swirled on the road at high speed, the impact could have been disastrous. Luckily, the speed (of the car) was less due to the wet road,” said an officer of the East Traffic guard under whose jurisdiction the incident happened.
The vehicle was seized and would undergo mechanical tests, the police said.