I've chosen to show this YouTube video because of the manner in which the school pupils on board the very wet vehicle behaved - very well indeed. You can tell this wasn't filmed in an inner city and not just from the greenery. Skip to the 1:10 mark to see the Dennis Dart/Plaxton Pointer go through some very deep water indeed. Normally the 'bow wave effect' sees little water enter the bus, but the pure distance of flooded road ensured lots of kids had wet feet.
Hopefully no action has been taken against the driver. Admittedly his cursory remark about not leaving anything on the floor was woefully inadequate but the other option would be to find somewhere to reverse and try a different route, which isn't easy on these roads and with the ground at saturation point already, using the entrance to a field to expertly reverse could have resulted in the vehicle getting stuck.
If nothing else the kids enjoyed it - and were ready for it, as the video description said they had a similar journey on the way to school.
8 comments:
Back in the 1950's (& before) Rotherham had a trollybus sytem, including some single-deckers with extra-long poles.
These operated under some low bridges in the valley, with dips in the road. Which frequently flooded.
The traction equipment on these machines was on the roof, and in winter, they would regularly go through "watersplahes", with people getting used to the idea of "feet up!" as it flowed in (open rear platform, of course) and out again .....
The comments on YouTube (most of which seem to be from friends of the uploader) suggest that action was taken against the driver - they think he's been sacked.
A difficult call - speed was a bit high for a single track although forward visibility through floods seemed OK. No river bridges crossed and no fast flowing water across road.
The sides of the lane will have enhanced the extent of water coming in as bow wave would have reflected in back pressure and raised water level.
Would have been better to have stopped before first flood and made sure that passengers were all prepared for this though.
Not currently an situation that most drivers will come across- unless they happen to be driving through deep fords (or drifts) in Africa, but very likely to be one which we will increasingly see in the UK given recent weather and reports of flooding. The 79 in Borrowdale has a tendency to meet with mild floods in the flat stretch towards Seatoller, as Derwentwater backs-up. Maybe driving through a flood should be part of BDOY?
This story is months old, why revive it now?
@anon 19:19 - er, because he wanted to?
Not a very compelling reason,
it made oi larf never mind the kids. The driver shouldn't have been sacked :-(
Nick
Whyever not? An act of stupidity.
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