As many of you know, OK has been getting whacked with storms and tornados. Last night on the local news a reporter did a bit from a heavily flooded main street and he was aghast at the number of drivers who for lack of a better word, are morons. A dozen vehicles stalled in 4 foot deep water and cars were going around the camera crew and fire truck in attempts to make it through. The drivers were then having to wade or swim out.
One late model vehicle made it most of the way and died. The reporter went over and tapped on the window to get a response. The teen passenger was on a cellphone calling for help and the driver was the mother of the teen. The conversation went basically like this.
Reporter: Ma’am, could you tell us what happened with your car?
Driver: I’m out of gas.
Reporter: Are you sure you’re out of gas?
Driver: Yes.
Reporter: Are you certain it doesn’t have something to do with four foot deep water?
Driver: Yes, this is a Jeep Liberty and I have 4WD…
And one wonders why people think they’re invincible while behind the wheel. I have no idea if someone ever showed up with a jug of gasoline or not. 
As a great rabbit once said- “What a maroon!”
I’m not nearly the first to say it, but “people are stupid”.
A Prius with a snorkel would be a perfect car until water got up to the eyeballs. USS Prius.
Back in the '70s I was approaching a low point in the road where the fire department was helping the adventurist drivers to try and get past the low point.
Being a lot younger and dumber back then I gave it a shot. Dropped my 1970 VW in yot into first gear and gave it the gas. All I saw was a water going over my car and felt the car get lower. I came out on the other side and every cop and fireman were laughing themselves silly. I just drove on.
I think that the comedian, Ron White, sums it up very well when he says, “You can’t fix stupid”.
I stopped to help a driver with a huge 4WD vehicle that had flipped over in a freak spring time snow storm. The man was traveling down a mountain just east of Seattle in mid-April and had just passed me by. The vehicle was nearly totalled but he and his friend were shaken up but unharmed. When I got to him he said, “I don’t understand how I lost control…I have 4 wheel drive and I was not speeding.” All the while I was just looking at the 2 foot deep snow on the roadway and shaking my head.
Exactly.
Just because you’re not exceeding the posted speed limit does NOT mean you’re driving too fast for the conditions.
Law enforcement officers explain this to drivers all the time.
@missileman Agree AWD is no substitute for brains or common sense. Hiking one summer near a large glacier in the Rockies I met a Dutch family on vacation and learned that the husband had rented a Ford Explorer mainly “to drive on the glacier”. He was told by both Ford and the rental agency that the Explorer was an “all terrain vehicle”!
I tactfully explained the the glacier was 1) off limits to tourist vehicles, 2) it had crevasses that would swallow up the Explorer, and 3) there were tours by the local parks department in those snow buggies with giant rubber tires.
He decided to take the tour instead and saw for himself how big that those crevasses really were from the tour guide.
I worry about the effect on insurance premiums. The weather nowadays is threatening to make insurance (home & auto) unaffordable to many.