Only a couple of those were egregious. The rest were just moving at enough speed to get through.
What would you get nicked for anyway? Due care? Wetting a pedestrian?
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...inconsiderate driving might be an option, if it weren't for the fact that most of the people being "inconvenienced" were there to witness/video exactly such behaviour.
At a certain water level, the road is closed with fixed official, unveilable signs. People regularly ignore them, either for the ford experience. or to park up in the adjacent Country Park (the latter being possibly legal, the former most definitely not - "failure to conform with a road sign").
The water level in most of the videos isn't that deep, but I do wonder whether the road was closed.
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Am I misreading or was that posted by Midlifecrisis, one of our members (now under a different alias) if I'm not mistaken...? Or maybe that is a common handle for plod...
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Ok now I get it now that I've seen the police cars.... this ford features in loads of YT videos when the water is far deeper than this and many of the vehicles breakdown after trying to get across.... no police cars then.
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Watched a few of these. What surprises me:
1. That people drive recent decent vehicles into a deep flood and expect to get out the other end with little driving skill
2. Spectators are putting themselves at risk of injury and are reckless to the risks (especially very young children)
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Have seen these videos and know nothing about the area and how much of a diversion to avoid, but can’t help but think there could be an easy engineering solution like a raised “ bridge” To let traffic through and still allow the water to run under?
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>> like a raised “ bridge” To let traffic through and still allow the water to
>> run under?
Isn't that pretty much what a ford is?
Under normal conditions the water flows (mostly) under the bed of the ford. Only in flood is there significant water over the ford. At some point, just like water flowing off fields as happens round here, the water is too deep for a car to wade. If you're lucky it just floods the ignition and cuts the engine out.
Unlucky and the engine sucks in water and, on the 'squeeze' stroke obeying the laws of physics water won't compress and con rod breaks.
If you're dead unlucky:
www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/oct/23/judge-drowned-drove-flooded-ford
Several of my colleagues knew Jonathan Gammon...
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Watched a few of the vids. Dangerous to spectators I would say, only a matter of time before someone gets seriously injured or killed.
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...given the local geography and road layout, the ford doesn't provide a logical route for anything but the smallest number of very local journeys (i.e. it isn't a route you would naturally take for a point-to-point trip).
In any case, the diversion required to avoid it is a smidgin' over half a mile.
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Certainly not worth the risk of "wasting" a decent car...
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Miss Z is renting a a lovely flat in a small gated community surrounded by water on the south coast.
The only road to the settlement is across some marshes to the sea and at one point there is a ruler by the side of the road to show water depth.
If the water is flowing fast enough I recon it could easily take a car and the stretch of road is deserted at night no one would notice.
One would expect decent crash barriers at the side of the road to stop a car disappearing but no such safety device has been added.
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What I don’t get, and maybe it’s a sign of the times, I don’t see in these videos helpful bystanders stopping traffic and explaining to the unsuspecting that they could kill their car instantly.
My wife would probably try and drive through that rather than reverse back and do a 3 point turn.
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....I don't think you understand, Bobby. ;-)
The sole reason the spectators are there is in hope that someone is going to kill their car.
Years ago, the prime spectators were kids (the local authority obligingly building a viewing platform) waiting for the splash as a vehicle drove through at an entirely fordable depth.
Soshul Meja has totally changed that, encouraging people to do very daft things, and attracting a rather different profile to spectate.
Very, very few of the incidents of recovery from there have involved "innocent" drivers getting inadvertently caught out. There is prominent signage, generally augmented by portable "road closed" signs when in spate, all of which gets deliberately ignored.
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>>there is a ruler by the side of the road to show water depth.
Exactly. Incredible that so many should be so stupid as to drive into a foot or more or water, sometimes at speed, when at best it will likely result in water sloshing about in the footwells.
Leaving them to it might improve the gene pool.
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>> >>there is a ruler by the side of the road to show water depth.
!8 inches of water aint much they say, doesn't look much does it. they don't realise that 18 inches of water has to go somewhere when they hit it, and its usually 48 inches over the bonnet of the car, in the air vents, and of course into the engine air intake.
They also don't know that the very expensive box of tricks call the body module, is in the floor well. Often well below the 18 inches.
They were aslo told by their grandfathers "keep the revs up or the water will go up your exhaust pipe" Err No.
Edit. I have tried to find my air intake so I know how high it is (in the event of an emergency situation) Withe the turbo and water to air intercooler piping involved - I cant find it.
Last edited by: Zero on Sat 3 Dec 22 at 13:32
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>>I have tried to find my air intake
Can't you start at the air filter?
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What shocks me is the potential for injury to those young children looking for the money shot.
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Oh and shaving octopuses..
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...no octopuses in that ford....
(the odd Tesco's trolley, though).
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>> >>I have tried to find my air intake
>>
>> Can't you start at the air filter?
which one, and which side of the intercooler?
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>> >> >>I have tried to find my air intake
>> >>
>> >> Can't you start at the air filter?
>>
>> which one, and which side of the intercooler?
>>
...the air intake side, of course...!
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...which includes the phrase "“People love seeing pain and failure,” said another YouTuber, who insisted on being referred to by his online username midlifecrisis101x."
Anyone we know? -)
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Whatever happened to MLC?
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...road semi-permanently closed and flooded......
....no problem!
www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-nottinghamshire-67216322
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Maybe the diversion was stupidly long when the field/farm was just on an adjacent piece of land.
As with YouTube quiet a few other 'flooded ford' type videos are popping up, probably being filmed by the same people who did the now closed ford ones.
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>> Maybe the diversion was stupidly long when the field/farm was just on an adjacent piece
>> of land.
>>
....the (shortish) diversion necessitated by the permanent closure of the ford months ago is/was via an A-road roundabout that was officially closed for some days due to flooding.
Illicit use of that would have been extremely visible, and there is a Road Policing unit adjacent.
Given the number of concrete blocks across the closed ford (you can see the effects on the tractor of some in the depths of the flood) I wouldn't have liked to take a solo tractor through there, let alone one pulling that trailer.
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Old Bill fun and games - Crankcase
