Driving through Brisbane in yesterday's storm

[Unco]

A stressful drive, yes. Considering I was in my little Ford Festiva. I drove through light hail in Johnson Road heading towards Ipswich the back way.

I get to the Ipswich Motorway and it had turned into a car park as traffic had to slow right down to go over a stretch of flood waters in the Rebank area approximately 50 metres in length.

Roughly around 10 inches of water covered the road. So I hoped for the best and slowly drove through it.

Now, what makes people want to drive through flood waters at high speed??? By high speed I mean that they create a wall of water in front of the car because they're not giving it enough time to go under the front of the car.

It is a stupid practice IMO. When you think about it, the intake generally sits in a high area of the engine bay. By driving slowly, the water stays down the bottom where it should be. By driving faster you double the height of the water directly in front of the car due to resistance, thus seriously increasing the chances of water reaching the intake and ending up inside the engine.

Anyway, I got through it OK, but I was really ****ed off at other people racing through the water and splashing it everywhere. I just can't see the merit in doing stuff like that.

Was anyone else out on the road when the storm hit? I managed to stick the LTD in the shed after washing it and going for a Sunday drive. I got it in about a minute before the rain started.

[sgt_doofey]

The whole idea of water crossing is to maintain a reasonable speed to maintain a bow wave in front of the car to prevent water from entering the engine bay.
Ploughing through it probably isn't right though. Check with serious 4wd drivers and they can probably give a bit better explanation than me.

[GTP owner]

The theory to driving with a bow wave is that the wave is in front of the vehicle, so the water height at the front of the engine is not that high. The bow wave sucks the vehicle along behind it - it makes for easier driving and you tend not to get pushed around by any current in the water.
The downside is that if there are other cars going the other way you send them a huge wave of water - not polite, and can really ruin their day.

[fiery]

Thank goodness you made it safely matey, there were quite a few less fortunate. I don't understand people going quickly through the water myself, my father (interstate truckie) always lectured me on making sure to drive slow but not to slow, as long as it was smooth blah blah.

Know a few people up this way to end up with trees smacking into their cars whilst trying to get home, they had no where to pull over under cover so just had to brave it.

The part for me that was really ordinary was NO POWER for over 10 hours, shouldn't complain though as there are places that still had no power at 9am this morning. Oh and quite a few of the schools are closed today too :togo:

[mowog]

I was on the Gateway at the time... For the most part people were being good. But there was the odd bullet proof idiot in jacked up 4WD's going to fast.

[Hillbilly F Truck]

All very true. What is worse if finding that unexpected large body of water lurking on motorway on/off ramps. This stuff never seems to drain away even hours after storm has passed. Me and the b double beside me and a whole bunch of other cars stumbled upon one on the other side of sextons hill at Tweed Heads during a downpour. Could not see ANYTHING when we all hit, and felt as though i had run into a brick wall. But was only water thankfully. Thought i was dead for sure. Water was still there on my return trip three days later.

[guzzis3]

What I don't get is when it rains half the traffic slows down the other half speed up. I was on moggil road and a twit in an X5 and another in an S class HAD to overtake me. I was doing the speed limit and the road was quite slippery, also covered with branches and deep puddles.

Yeah I know X5 and S class makes them idiots to start with...

Then some other person in a jackaroo or pajero, dunno which, was doing about 50 in a 70 zone when they really didn't have to. I don't get it....

Anyway, Bellbowrie and that end of Anstead really got hammered. Some people at the start of Mt Crosby Road were doing a great job of directing traffic round a fallen tree. Great job, showing good community spirit.

[Hunter]

Yeah was out in the rain... bloody nuts it was. Was driving through morayfield trying to avoid the bruce but one of the roads there (the one that runs parallel to the bruce) was flooded out - I'm talking waist high water and idiots in regular cars were trying to drive through it. I told the missus that in no uncertain terms was I about to fjord our 4 month old Mazda through such deep water... Probably wouldn't have even taken a falcon through it. Had to turn around and go back the bloody highway.

Originally Posted by guzzis3

What I don't get is when it rains half the traffic slows down the other half speed up. I was on moggil road and a twit in an X5 and another in an S class HAD to overtake me. I was doing the speed limit and the road was quite slippery, also covered with branches and deep puddles.

Yeah I don't understand this mentality either... we were on the old highway, had about 30-40m of visibility at best so I slowed down to about 50-60km/h and I had morons tailgating me :

[guzzis3]

When it got really heavy everyone slowed to 40 and that was fine, but breaking the speed limit in HEAVY rain and uncertain roads is silly, as is slowing 20 km/h when the rain has pretty much stopped.

Actually that reminds me of a story...(puts on reading glasses, settels back into recliner)

When I was younger I worked on ambulances for a living, when they were F100's (Ford link there you know). This was in Sidinee, which floods sometimes. So a car comes up to a flooded road, they are NOT on an emergency run, they call in and control orders them through the swell. Naturally the engine injests a lung full and they limp to the workshop. It's one of those new fangled FI windsors and it's running really rough. So much investigation later we find:

2 conrods bananna shaped
several pistons in sump
crank has snapped through a main journal and front piston pair and all ancilliarys are driving off friction power

Despite all this damage and more the car drove well enough to get back to the shops under it's own power.

I got a lot of respect for Fseries working on them. Tough as old boots. I puled 9"'s with no teeth on the crownwheel, did more brakes and c6's than I can remember but the rest of the cars held together really well considering the abuse. The paramedics would jump median strips at 100 km/h in their 3 1/2 tonne cars and they wouldn't blink....

Anyway, I digress...

[TheSneakiness]

I watched it come over Buderim and thought we're gonna cop it.

My wife had to drive home in it... she's not real good with storms but held her nerve and got home A OK.

[FordACE]

I was driving toward petrie from brendale last night during the storm in my falcon. Had the whole family, girlfriend and her parents and brother in the car. The wind was crazy. About 50 metres ahead of us, I see a tree (gum tree about 25 metres tall) fall over, grab the power lines and create this amazing amount of blue light and all the lights in the district went out. There was a car in front of me that probably missed the tree by about 10 metres. It blocked about 3/4's of the road. At this stage I was a bit paniced, because I was worried more trees were going to come down.

Eventually got to our destination safely. There was a taxi in front of me at some stage that was pushing a big branch in front of it. It was unnerving, and interesting all in one.

[DJM83]

We live in Redcliffe and got abit of rain but thats about it, i watched it come over the airport and across Moreton bay. The sky started to turn green and i knew hail was lucking in those clouds but we got nothing.
This is a picture that i found on ninemsn.com, it was taken almost at the end of our street looking across towards Brighton/Sandgate along the Houghton Highway

[Swordsman88]

I wasn't out in the rain at the time, but i had to leave just after the storm passed and once again was astounded at the stupidity of brisbane drivers in the wet. I'm from FNQ myself so wet weather driving is standard procedure (100km/h highway driving on crap roads is common in full monsoon).

When the rain as very heavy the drivers were quite good (slow but safe) but once the weather passed and visibility was good (bar a bit of spray) they either went manic (oh great its dry i can do 20+km/h over the limit like usual) or useless (braking erratically and far too early, squinting through non-existant rain, do sub 10km/h under the limit for no reason etc.)

If you have a mechanically sound car and it isn't a truck you can mantain the surburban limit quite easilly on lightly wet roads (in fact it is better than greasy conditions). Why do you need to ride the brake down hills and AROUND CORNERS : in the wet so you can stay under a mythically 'safe' speed of 10k less than the limit??

Reminds me of the young gun V8 supercar driver Van Gisbergan when asked why he was so good in the wet, he said 'Driving in the wet (with good visibility mind) is the same as the dry, just with less grip.' A bit of extra space for stopping distance and your fine. Don't even get me started on the motorway (can't even do 80 km/h in a 110 zone due to 'light spray' ha!)