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Driver rescued after pushed downstream

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DoubleTop:
http://www.readingchronicle.co.uk/news/reading/articles/2010/03/27/45680-driver-nearly-swept-away-in-ford/

This one is getting a little notorious now, as we all know, it's not the depth that's the issue in fords, it's the speed of the flow that's the thing to watch out for.  I went to the ford last week in the Freelander to clean the underside and backed out, and that was before the rain!

DT.

Chris Putt:
This is becoming all to common, once again last year the number of vehicle in water related incidents rose.

Its difficult to see how people dont know better, as a bloke once told me 'if the water is brown, your going to drown'- and looking at the velocity of the water on the surface is surely a fairly obvious indicator! #Also bear in mind current vector- water on the outside of a bend is moving significantly faster than that on the inside, it also moves faster where squeezed through a gap (often ford and bridges?)

In addition, whilst it is all fun and games to go wading, when the rivers are in spate is is usually near impossible to see the river bed composition and is more likely that there is going to be debris floating in the river, what you dont see is the suspended load and the bedload of the river ie, those objects carried sub surface, these tend to be heavier objects (washing machines, big rocks etc.) and are likely to cause damage or move a vehicle.

Without wishing to get too boring, I can tell you that a fire appliance will be moved when fully loaded in 2 1/2 foot of water moving at 3mph, a 'normal' car, will move in water at 3mph under a foot, so whilst its all well and good to have the best prepped vehicle in the world, it will be washed away by surprisingly shallow water, given a good flow.

I have seen some horrific reports on a number of car related incidents in the last few years and it is amazing how quickly a car becomes a death trap in water.

Please, please, please screw your heads on before going wading, especially in flood water- otherwise it will be the likes of myself and others who I work with or train who have to come and rescue/recover you.

Chris Putt
(Swiftwater and Flood rescue Technician)

carbore:
im sure it woudld take someone with a bit of electronics knowledge about 20 mins to knock up a prototype ford-warning system,

Basically a trubine-type arrangemnt that senses the flow rate and then triggers a warning sign when the flow rate gets too fast. It may need to be slightly height dependant e.g. hig flow rate at over 1 foot deapth = trigger sign.

Would be easy to do with solar power sensor and batter to kick in to power the sign.

(no doubt that £100 quids worth of kit would cost abotu £50,000 buy the time the council procurement teams had got the contract right!)

Saffy:

--- Quote from: carbore on March 31, 2010, 09:10:30 ---im sure it woudld take someone with a bit of electronics knowledge about 20 mins to knock up a prototype ford-warning system,

Basically a trubine-type arrangemnt that senses the flow rate and then triggers a warning sign when the flow rate gets too fast. It may need to be slightly height dependant e.g. hig flow rate at over 1 foot deapth = trigger sign.

Would be easy to do with solar power sensor and batter to kick in to power the sign.

(no doubt that £100 quids worth of kit would cost abotu £50,000 buy the time the council procurement teams had got the contract right!)

--- End quote ---

I prefer the idiot de-population effect of fast flowing fords  :)

Disco Matt:
Interestingly the comments on the article are much the same as I'd expect here - "you twit" being the general line!   :lol:

I'm wondering if all 4x4s should come with driver training, considering the number of cases I've heard of where someone has evidently thought "I am invincible" shortly before finding that a CR-V may have 4x4 but tends to float...

As for anyone taking a conventional 4x2 vehicle into water, you'd have to be completely mad to even think about the stuff some of these idiots barrel into "because the satnav told me to"!

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