Monday 11 March 2013

`The Ducking Stool is a humane punishment` - official

Essex Police helo`. (Immune from floodwaters whilst in air)

A very flooded road, leading to an very angry river.
A Range Rover that neither floats, climbs Kilimanjaro or shoots rapids. Trade Descriptions Act breached?
Snow and rain in East Anglia bringeth forth the strange ones in Range Rovers who believe the Company's TV advertisements about driving up Everest and crossing the wild Zambesi on low profile road tyres whilst wearing Jimmy Choos.

The intrepid duo approached the river down a road that was a 300 metres stretch of overflowed river.(warning clue number one)
At bridges it is usually narrow and fast flowing and a full eight feet lower than this (warning clue number two).
There is even a weir (warning clue number three).
The nearer they got the faster the mighty Waveney flowed, but on they pressed (big hint number one). The vehicle starts to move sideways (message that you are no longer in control)
Then its lifted by the current and dumped against trees. It was freezing and they were lucky not to have been swept into the river totally.

Essex helo (@£2k an hour), a fire engine, a fire service dinghy, paramedics and 4 police units later and its all sorted. So, Land Rover, expect to hear from someones solicitors in due course.

11 comments:

Blue Eyes said...

Under "insurance based" systems, this would result in a nice claim by the services against the poor victim's insurance company, followed up by a nice claim by the insurance company against the relevant traffic authorities for not putting even more signs up...

I think our system is better. Not.

Hogdayafternoon said...

Blue: LoL, a sign like, "Oi, YOU ARE DRIVING IN A RIVER"

Blue Eyes said...

Sign 1: yer gonna drwn #lolz

Sign 2: OMG RIVERZ!

Sign 3: HAHAHA PROPER FCKD!

Marcus Erroneous said...

I lived near Fort Worth, TX for awhile and saw this every year. Despite folks drowning or nearly drowning, said acts being covered by the newsies on TV, it was a yearly repeat occurrence that someone would die for crossing a flooded stretch of roadway. Every year they had a program on TV to warn against it and every year they ended up covering a rescue or recovery operation. Stupidity - not just a British hobby.

The only good news out of it was that they were never able to successfully sue someone over it. The bad news was that there was an unending stream of folks that just didn't get it.

Hogdayafternoon said...

Marcus: It is the nature of the beast, clearly. I walked down the road today. The Rangey is still there (it had a `Supercharger` so perhaps thats why they pressed on regardless - I mean, it had `Super` on the badge and so they `charged`. No George A Custer badges tho`.

Spoke to a neighbour who lives by the bridge. Pre-rescue there were 2 kids in the back seat waving through the sunroof. I wonder if, on the cold wind, the plaintive cries could be faintly heard "Help, the driver is a w a n k e r " ?

BillB said...

near where I live, occasionally a driver in an DEV thinks that because he has 4WD he can ignore the laws of physics and drive on a snowy/icy road at high speed.

The SUV generally looks like a slapped hockey puck

BillB said...

My apologies, even with GB Shaw's observation that "England and America are 2 countries separated by a common language" - nobody knows what a "DEV" (SUV) is...

Hogdayafternoon said...

Bill: :) Is that why the car industry decided they had to build a HUMMER?

Stressed Out Cop said...

Just popping in to see you're still collecting the pension and send regards. I love my 4WD - they do you a sense of invinsibility !! Blue eyes - fancy meeting you here too ... must be time for beers once it warms up

Hogdayafternoon said...

SOC: You divil you! Greast to hear from you. I'll check out the blog immediately.

Justthisguy said...

Oh, good Lord! I live in Flarduh, where we have hurricanes from time to time. Not only that, but North America, generally, is famous for having the most violent weather on the planet. You people on the right little, tight little island are _so_ spoiled by having usually temperate weather, when most people who live at y'all's latitude have rather intemperate weather.