Rufford Ford

I just cannot fathom how people are still driving through this. Surely everyone has seen the YouTube clips now.

The hordes of people filming on the bridge should probably give you a good idea that failure is likely.
Incredible.
🙄

Still, makes for good watching.
It’s like slow TV, except with expensive car-based disasters as the subject matter. 😂

Ive watched a fair few of those. Most failures are not because the water is too deep – its a failure of technique although the first one in that clip is too deep

Ive watched a fair few of those. Most failures are not because the water is too deep – its a failure of technique

Probably, though this collection seems to be with a depth of about 3 feet which is higher than most folks air intakes.

I’ve seen a lot of techniques from tentative to flat out, and seen failures in all approaches too 😂

There’s a particular cruel pleasure in seeing a big 4×4 fall foul 👹

ive watched a few recently.

At what point does it stop becoming a ford and start being a river?

lots of peple lost a lot of money. i feel sorry for them tbh

I like how someone thinks they’ll be fine driving through when there is already a car floating in there 🤣

I know it’s his own fault, but for that first one that’s his livelihood gone. Can’t help but feel a bit sorry for him.

I saw one the other day where a motorbike tried it and the guy went over the handlebars at quite high speed. Wasn’t sure if it was real footage or doctored somehow.

Last part of the clip – don’t watch if you don’t want to see a violent flip of said motorbiker

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BY-UuZbAnNE

i thought the kia might make it until the one life prick came charging past and tried to drive up the river…

Here is one we did last February. No raised air intake/snorkel, just a bog standard Defender. Officially the wading depth is only 50 cm. You will note that it comes over the front of the bonnet!

Are the clowns filming this removing the warning signs/closure notices too?
Stood there, cameras out encouraging people through, or pressuring them through as the local 4×4 crew beep them from behind.
Pretty savage really.

Are the clowns filming this removing the warning signs/closure notices too?
Stood there, cameras out encouraging people through, or pressuring them through as the local 4×4 crew beep them from behind.
Pretty savage really.

Yeah, a lot of the locals aren’t happy about the YouTube effect.

that guy in the blue landy wants a kicking for creating those bow waves like that.

Its not jyst the air intake, some of those had started to float and will have lost traction.

Are the clowns filming this removing the warning signs/closure notices too?

Wrong if they are but drivers always have a choice.

5:22, pretty heavy influence on the drivers free choice.
White landy also positions himselve behind a vehicle in one clip.

that guy in the blue landy wants a kicking for creating those bow waves like that.

And for beeping the car in front as well.
Probably the closest the moron ever gets to being an offroader. It looks suspiciously good condition.

Are the clowns filming this removing the warning signs/closure notices too?
Stood there, cameras out encouraging people through, or pressuring them through as the local 4×4 crew beep them from behind.
Pretty savage really.

I’ve been wondering this. They seem to get way more failures than back when it first took off – all fair saying people still have free will but I doubt most people understand quite how catastrophic it can be. I thought it normally has a road closed sign up when it’s flooded. Still can’t help but watch sometimes though!

It pains me somewhat how much wastage is coming out of all those scrap cars

I particularly like the ones where people drive up the river by accident 🤣

 I thought it normally has a road closed sign up when it’s flooded.

There’s sometimes a police presence booking people for ignoring the closed signs.

Must be a nice little earner for the Tubers – often over £250k views.

Classic nimby there, annoyed that their nice place has people visiting it. Haha.

I’ve only seen one of the clip vids and got bit wound up.
If some end of a bell came running up with a camera when the cars probably borked. They more than likely be the release of my frustration.

The ford used to be quite passable (back when we were younger so a long time ago).
More recently it seems to be deep regularly, I think it should just be closed, not a big detour.

Edit: that said if you approach the ford and it looks like the thumbnail in the op what do you expect.
Common sense must make you realize they would build a foot bridge just a foot or so higher than the water level.

How happy would the ‘tubers be if someone was there turning everyone around?

I don’t like the idea of some people’s enjoyment/ entertainment is someone else’s misery or misfortune.

TBH I have a feeling that some people don’t get the hydrolock issue and think that after the car has dried out it will be fine.

TBH I don’t really get the point of driving thru it and don’t get why they haven’t put a bridge over it,like the footpath one that people stand on.

I’d hate to see the labour cost for sorting out a lightly hydrolocked engine 🙂

I don’t like the idea of some people’s enjoyment/ entertainment is someone else’s misery or misfortune.

+1

I rode through a narrow (1 car width) lane on my road bike last week, when it had been raining heavily. Quite a few low floods on the route (few inches deep), but not too bad. The last one started like that, then got up to my bb. Then came up higher. It topped out at the top of my front wheel. I didn’t really want to stop (no way to turn around easily and no way of knowing where the edges of the road were), so just carried slowly on, I figured if my bars became submerged I might have to call it a day 😀

5:22, pretty heavy influence on the drivers free choice.

Rubbish. no amount of horn blowing, flashing would have got me driving into that. Even so, that seems like the only example and they have have dozens of videos of drivers voluntarily driving through…

Nice clip of a Tesla getting through the other day, that a local friend shared.

Yeah, a lot of the locals aren’t happy about the YouTube effect.

Oh the irony…

Nice clip of a Tesla getting through the other day, that a local friend shared.

how well protected are the batteries/circuity on those things ?  What’d happen if one got submerged ? 💥❓

I don’t like the idea of some people’s enjoyment/ entertainment is someone else’s misery or misfortune.

I think its more of the case that those going through, or the vast majority, know of it but do so as a bit of a challenge. Sometimes they come unstuck. No different to the public reaction to ‘It’s a knockout’.

Yeah, a lot of the locals aren’t happy about the YouTube effect.

Oh the irony…

Not really. I’d have to be a local watching it for that to apply no?

I don’t like the idea of some people’s enjoyment/ entertainment is someone else’s misery or misfortune.

I know what you mean, but an enormous part of what people find amusing has always been based on the mishaps of others.
Court jesters, Charlie Chaplin, laurel and Hardy, You’ve been framed, candid camera, Jeremy Beadle, failarmy etc etc.
I expect we’ve always enjoyed others making a hash of things.

I wouldn’t particularly say that someone driving their car into a clearly very wet ford with a depth gauge that reads 3 feet and finding that their car floats away is a misfortune anyway. More numptyesque.

We have an annual “If it’s flooded, forget it” campaign every year in Queensland. People still die every year attempting to drive through floods.

This was the end of my road last February. A few years back cars were washed down the river.

Apologies for DM content but the time lapse cameras on bridges are pretty cool

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10596775/Incredible-time-lapse-videos-size-speed-Queensland.html

This is a couple of miles down the road from me.

A few points;

EVERYONE knows it gets deep after rain, it’s not signposted as a main route – it’s a short cut that I would use more often except that I have eyes and some common sense, the depth marker is bright yellow FFS.

The taxi is from Mansfield which is only a few miles away, and the driver will know the reputation of the ford (did I mention EVERYONE knows it gets deep?) if it was my way of earning a living I would not be risking it for the sake of about 1 extra mile to Ollerton.

If some tit in a Land Rover is enough to pressure you to drive into a deep ford then do tailgaters make you speed? Take responsibility for your actions Shirley?

Mostly the footbridge is populated by kids wanting to be splashed during holidays and weekends, rather than a sinister group of youtubers.

Any local who hasn’t sorted out a business towing twits out with a tractor is missing a trick.

I don’t think many of those idiots ^ understand what a hydraulic locked engine is or the financial implications that entails.

Anything with an ECU is usually written-off after flooding as a matter of course since the chance of moisture in electronics causing very expensive and untraceable faults down the line is considered too high to even bother repairing the engines.

I think 99% of people have no idea how a car engine works or that it even needs air. Why else drive through? I don’t even think it would be covered under insurance??

Are the Youtubers really whining because the farmer has dredged it and the levels are now boringly low? Priceless level of entitlement.

He knows that his viewers are only interested in people totalling their engines in deeper water.

A 20mph (or lower limit) and a couple of cameras/speed bumps on the run-up should take care of the speeders.

Was down there in October for a holiday and drove past it…it was flooded so I didn’t even bother getting out the car for a look. It looks much more in the videos than it is in real life, but having seen the videos, I had no desire to float my car or submerge the bikes on the rear rack…annoyingly, I find the videos really addictive to watch!

Oldnick sums it up nicely – it’s a ford, it’s either passable or it isn’t, depending on recent weather. Some people misjudge it, and I sympathise to a degree, some people are stupid and deserve whatever it costs them.

Nice part of the world to explore on a bike, if you avoid the main roads.

Not so great off-road – I got well and truly lost and discovered the bridleway I was on was no longer a bridleway but a footpath…ended up checking the map and sure enough it was bridleway for most of the route but suddenly changed to a footpath – no junction or change in signage, just stopped being a bridleway and was then a footpath.
The locals seemed to be reasonably ok, but I suspect my Scots accent and saying I was lost as the bridleway I was following seemed to have changed to a footpath somewhere along the way without any signage got them all being slightly helpful and getting me back a slightly different way – only comment I got that wasn’t overly helpful was for me to be very careful to not touch the ivy as I’d no doubt damage it as I climbed over a fence with my bike – I offered to climb over the fence with my bike so ensure I wasn’t anywhere near the ivy.
Whilst on my ‘getting lost’ ride, I also rode past a sort of large warehouse that had a lot of old but vey nice looking Porsches, Ferraris and maybe Lambos parked outside it – about 12 cars all looking seriously nice – in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

Classic nimby there, annoyed that their nice place has people making a ****ing nuisance of themselves.

There, fixed that for you. 🙄