Your car may get swept away with the flood on a bridge too
So with the weather being less than ideal these days and many parts of Malaysia still facing floods here and there, we get more news of flooded bridges and the heroics some drivers try to pull off in pushing through these bridges with horrific results, so here is why you should never drive through a flooded bridge or floods in general.
Now, let me just get the biggest danger out of the way, drowning. As we can see in the pictures, the heavy rain led to a bridge in Labis, Johor to be completely submerged after first sustaining heavy flood damage and it only gets worse from here as heavy rains are expected to continue for a while.
Moreover, the Malaysian Meteorological Department (MetMalaysia) also issued a warning of continuous rain in most parts of Peninsular Malaysia, as well as certain areas in Sabah and Sarawak on 26 February 2023 and if people drive through flooded roads in these areas, it could spell disaster for them.
Now obviously, driving through any type of flooded terrain is dangerous, but why is it more dangerous on flooded bridges, in particular? First and foremost, the driver would lack the proper visibility needed to navigate the sides of the bridge and end up driving off the bridge as a result.
In doing that, the driver now puts his car and, as a result, all the passengers in the car, at risk of being swept away with the flood and quite possibly into a place where the car may not be found. While flooded bridges may not look too deep, the structure of a flooded bridge may be heavily compromised so this is another factor.
In fact, one example of a car being swept away on a flooded bridge includes an incident in January of 2017 taking place in Zimbabwe, Southern Africa, where a ZBC journalist’s car fell into the Mudzi River as the driver attempted to cross a flooded low level bridge. This could happen to anyone, anywhere and at any time too.
On top of that, while attempting to cross flooded bridges might just lead to one’s car being swept away with the flood, it can also end up costing you in the long run as even in the best case scenario if you manage to cross the flooded bridge without being swept away, your car may sustain flood damage.
Why is this a bad thing you ask? Well, essentially, if any part of one’s car is damaged by the attempting to cross flooded terrain, this will have to be recorded when the car is being fixed, worse still, if one never finds out about the damages, it may continuously cause problems for the car as time goes by.
This will also ruin the already low resale value of one’s flood damaged car. Essentially, there is no benefit to crossing a flooded bridge or any flooded terrain so just don’t do it. Stay safe and remember to always drive safely especially now with these heavy rains.
