Just wondering what folk think of this.

Old couple and their dog from up norfff come to the town I live in.
There's a ford (basically a large body of water, let's call it a lake to simplify) which isn't really crossable even in the peak of summer. We have had almost constant and heavy rain for nearly 3 weeks now. It's not hidden, it's at the bottom of a hill and you can see the Ford from the main road easily. There are big warning signs saying about a deep body of water, hazard warning posts in the body of water itself and also height markers which were showing around 5ft at the time.

(Presumably their sat-nav? Doesn't say in the news report) guides them down the road towards the lake and tells them to "continue straight".

Old couple enter and their car is washed away. One drowns (and the dog too) and the other survives.

Not sure who was driving but one of them was, the male died from drowing and the lady was taken to hospital and will live

Are these people just victims of a flood or were they colossal idiots? Because I went with the idiot vote and that was seemingly shunned for being cruel.
I don't care what other people think of my opinion, but I was interested in what people's views on here would be about the issue in general.
Please vote, you will save a kitten.

Well, what's not idiotic about driving into a lake?

do you know how many people ignore signs like this every year because their navi reads ferry lines as roads?

They are just idiots doing what a little screen/voice told them, I'd say, the more technology we get in cars, the more accidents happen because of it.

What type of car was it?

Not that it really matters, driving into 5 feet of water in most any vehicle is a awful idea.

The Americans seem to all agree that this is a case of idiocy. 3/3 of us anyways.

We say it's stupidity but we know that a good lawyer could probably turn your stupidity into millions of dollars.

Quote from Rappa Z :

We say it's stupidity but we know that a good lawyer could probably turn your stupidity into millions of dollars.

Yeah... They might claim neglegance on the government for not having the body of water protected by a guard rail and get a wrongful death settlement...

Thankfully, this didn't happen in America so that's not likely to happen

its unfortunate... but Reallly we gotta wait a week or so to see if any other details float to the surface...

The stupidity of people, and their willingness to blindly follow orders is baffling sometimes. Once a woman in my area followed the instuctions to a T when the satnav told her to turn around after missing an exit on the Autobahn... Killed 3 people IIRC.

haha theirishnoob

The type of car was a Toyota Yaris!

Here's the ford in question.



A day later after it had not rained for about 24 hrs and it was sunny, the height markers were about 4.2ft so it's believed at the time of the incident the water was 5ft deep.
It's a shame the person died and no-one deserved to, but ultimately whoever was driving was an idiot and caused the guys death.

The depth markings in the photo are fairly vague, so have people in your parts heard of bridges ?

Seems an odd idea having a marked ford that you can never cross as the waters too deep.

But it's probably been there since the doomsday book and nobody thought that what worked for a horse may not work for a Yaris.

Sorry to hear about the dog. Horrible way to go. :/

Is it horrible for me to say, "thanks for improving the gene pool"?

I agree that the marking of the dept was not that good, but then again, if you are unsure of something you ARE NOT unsure of it. They should have stepped out of the car, and read the signs / taken an observation before crossing.

If they are idiots, I don't know, they did a bad judgment and had to pay the consequences for it, I think it's more sad. But if the result of the investigation is that the couple blindly belived their GPS or whatever it was, well then I agree, then they are idiots. People must learn to use their eyes and their mind, and not just belive anything that is shuffled into their face by computers, media or whatever.

Quote from NSX_FReeDoM :

Is it horrible for me to say, "thanks for improving the gene pool"?

More to the point is it funny? No. So you not only look like a dick for trying to make a joke about a man who died in an accident, but you managed to be extra-dick by not even using a funny joke.

Even if the navi sais, I wouldn't drive through that... Just common sense, nothing else...

Also R.I.P doggy.

The driver was old, and while being old it's easy to make silly mistakes. Old people are usually too slow to read all the traffic signs.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

More to the point is it funny? No. So you not only look like a dick for trying to make a joke about a man who died in an accident, but you managed to be extra-dick by not even using a funny joke.

And as they were way past childbearing age, one that didn't even make any sense.

Quote from NSX_FReeDoM :

Is it horrible for me to say, "thanks for improving the gene pool"?

Funnily enough I said the same thing

Quote from S14 DRIFT :

Funnily enough I said the same thing

free car wash, inside and out? :P

Being a country bumpkin I am familiar with fords, many city folk aren't.

But also the water level marker is typically at the deepest point, which in high water can place it some distance from the edge, some water markers are not that clear when viewed from afar, especially with the eyesight deterioration of age.

This could just be a lack of relevant awareness, or over confidence from familiarity with ford and a lack of considered thought as so the conditions due to a prevailing distraction.

I have certainly misjudged fords in the past, okay not one at 5ft deep but certainly some deeper than I expected, but with a nagging wife / grumpy old sod in the car it's easy to see how an elderly driver might make a decision which at other times wouldn't be rational!

I have made plenty of errors in my years of driving. Usually such things are only problematical when some other driver is negligent of the mistakes of others, but there is no other driver on the roads as dangerous and powerful as mother nature.

Here's my verdict:

I think the accident itself was unfortunate. From the look of the picture, that ford looks more like a big puddle than anything really, so I guess they can be excused for driving into it.

Now, how can anyone drown in 5ft of water? Let alone a dog, who I suppose wasn't wearing a seat belt and could theoritically swim to the surface quite quickly?

And another point, since we're discussing idiocy. If you cannot cross that ford even, why are there roads going into and out of it, but no bridge crossing?!

Quote from Yuri Laszlo :

Now, how can anyone drown in 5ft of water? Let alone a dog, who I suppose wasn't wearing a seat belt and could theoritically swim to the surface quite quickly?

This isn't a swimming pool, this is two people in their 80s crashing into a rain-swollen river.

Even a healthy 20-something would have a hard time in 5 feet of water doing 15mph without some sort of flotation device.

A ford isn't always flooded, but sometimes standing water can end up on top of the road and end up like that. Normally - it's just a road.

I've been in the same situation before, and ignored the satnav and found another route... having said that, a lot of people don't realise the depth markers are there