Land Rover driving through flooded roads

[Daniël Bos]

The things that bug me most about this particular film clip are 1) why has nobody criticised the tractor driver? If it was dangerous for one (holes in road, washed out bridges, etc) then it was for both. Both vehicles were evidently suitable, so you can't argue it's ok in a tractor but not ok in what is clearly a deep-wading prepared Landrover. 2) Everyone is judging the LR driver without (as far as I know) knowing anything about his local knowledge. It looks to me from the clip that he knows the road very well, he knows where it's deeper and shallower, he knows where the crown and edges are, and the extent of the camber. He quite possibly knows where any manholes are. He appears to me to have the right knowledge, right skills, and right equipment to undertake a trip most of us couldn't. To that extent he's not doing anything more dangerous than a tricky rock climb, for example, and we don't condemn that.

 

I agree that the police can't congratulate this guy and have to use the incident to discourage less skilled stupid types from doing the same, but the police PR on this was crass to an alarming degree.

 

I will be amongst the first to condemn those who drive unnecessarily through flooded streets and force bow waves into peoples homes, or drive their Audis into floods and drown them, etc, but I absolutely will not condemn everyone on the basis that if someone can't do it, no-one should be allowed to.

 

We all fell trees, a hazardous undertaking, and we rightly criticise Joe Public when he comes to grief doing it. What makes us safe (well, safer) is we have the skills, tools, and knowledge to assess and minimise the risks, just like, I suggest, the Welney driver appears to have in those circumstances.

 

 

The tractor would have been able to stop, turn its engine off, restart it and drive on without any issues.

 

The LR was right on the edge of it's abilities, any hickups and it would have been in deep trouble.

 

See, I can argue that quite reasonably I think:biggrin:

 

Even if the driver literally knows every manhole (which I reckon is highly unlikely) there are trees, and other obstacles the flow of the river might have put in it's path. There is no road-going landrover I've ever seen that has the capabilities of a tractor. Just the sheer mass of a tractor (a jcb will weigh more that 3x as much as the lr) keeps it from flowing away infinitely more so than the car.

 

We don't know why they drove through, but unless it was an emergency I reckon it was a reckless, selfish and foolish act, looked like fun though:biggrin:

[Marc Lewis]

The things that bug me most about this particular film clip are 1) why has nobody criticised the tractor driver? If it was dangerous for one (holes in road, washed out bridges, etc) then it was for both. Both vehicles were evidently suitable, so you can't argue it's ok in a tractor but not ok in what is clearly a deep-wading prepared Landrover. 2) Everyone is judging the LR driver without (as far as I know) knowing anything about his local knowledge. It looks to me from the clip that he knows the road very well, he knows where it's deeper and shallower, he knows where the crown and edges are, and the extent of the camber. He quite possibly knows where any manholes are. He appears to me to have the right knowledge, right skills, and right equipment to undertake a trip most of us couldn't. To that extent he's not doing anything more dangerous than a tricky rock climb, for example, and we don't condemn that.

 

I agree that the police can't congratulate this guy and have to use the incident to discourage less skilled stupid types from doing the same, but the police PR on this was crass to an alarming degree.

 

I will be amongst the first to condemn those who drive unnecessarily through flooded streets and force bow waves into peoples homes, or drive their Audis into floods and drown them, etc, but I absolutely will not condemn everyone on the basis that if someone can't do it, no-one should be allowed to.

 

We all fell trees, a hazardous undertaking, and we rightly criticise Joe Public when he comes to grief doing it. What makes us safe (well, safer) is we have the skills, tools, and knowledge to assess and minimise the risks, just like, I suggest, the Welney driver appears to have in those circumstances.

 

I agree somewhat with what you are saying, though would you not say it is more dangerous for the L/R driver than it was for the tractor driver? Also the L/R driver may well have known that road very well but when it is under water like that it is incredibly easy to become slightly disorientated, much like being in a smoke filled house.

[Peter]

It's one thing to do it quietly out of necessity, filming it and uploading to YouTube is a whole different kettle of fish. Once you put yourself to public scrutiny you can't really complain about the response.

 

 

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[Treewolf]

I would completely agree that the LR driver needed a much greater skill level than the tractor driver, but we shouldn't assume that he didn't have the necessary skills.

 

It is also worth noting that the entire length of that road has flood marker boards along both sides which are there specifically to make it possible to drive when flooded. This makes the apparent contradiction "we've put these markers here so you can drive this road when it's underwater but you're being criminally reckless if you use them" harder to reconcile.

 

But perhaps the boards are only for the benefit of tractor drivers.

[skyhuck]

I would completely agree that the LR driver needed a much greater skill level than the tractor driver, but we shouldn't assume that he didn't have the necessary skills.

 

It is also worth noting that the entire length of that road has flood marker boards along both sides which are there specifically to make it possible to drive when flooded. This makes the apparent contradiction "we've put these markers here so you can drive this road when it's underwater but you're being criminally reckless if you use them" harder to reconcile.

 

But perhaps the boards are only for the benefit of tractor drivers.

 

I would argue that I'm a more skilled driver than a 90year old granny, however the speed limits on public roads for both myself and the granny are the same.

[Treewolf]

It's one thing to do it quietly out of necessity, filming it and uploading to YouTube is a whole different kettle of fish. Once you put yourself to public scrutiny you can't really complain about the response.

 

 

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I completely agree with you there!

[Treewolf]

I would argue that I'm a more skilled driver than a 90year old granny, however the speed limits on public roads for both myself and the granny are the same.

 

Yes, and the law is the same for you and the granny, however there has been no suggestion that the LR driver broke the law.

 

The Police did initially say they were considering prosecution but later backpedalled when they figured out the only questionable thing he'd done was to drive past an advisory road sign (the "road closed" sign) which isn't an offence. There was then some talk of a careless driving charge, but without any evidence of carelessness this also was quietly dropped.

[Treewolf]

How about this bloke then? Makes the Welney driver look cautious.

 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFdj9qgxicM]floods 5th & 6th Sep 08 - YouTube[/ame]

[JLA Arborists]

Found this website if you want to get abit wet.

 

http://www.wetroads.co.uk/

[Daniel Jiggins]

Found this website if you want to get abit wet.

 

http://www.wetroads.co.uk/

 

Interesting read thanks for posting