Meanwhile in Iceland...

This is pretty typical for Iceland. Tourist will rent 4X4, see glacial river and try to cross. Even experienced drivers with monster trucks have difficulty sometimes. Not my photo and in all fairness I don't know that this driver was a visitor to Iceland, but probably was. This was just a few days ago.

IF that was me, a visitor to Iceland, I'd be ticked off as well. Not that the river was far deeper than I thought, but that my rental vehicle says "Don't Worry, Be S3xy" on the side...

The guy with the tractor won't win any Einstein awards either,maybe he rented the tractor too.

Reminds me of a neighbor one time. He had a kid who drove like a bat out of hades all the time and ran off in the lake in his pickup,with a foreign exchange student who was living with them,along with him. The neighbor came and asked if I could go down and pull them out. I got there with the tractor and they were out there sitting in the box of the pickup in water about waist deep. I backed up to the edge of the road and the neighbor stood there with a tow strap in his hand looking at me like I was going to wade out there and hook it. I just shrugged and said "He's your kid. Maybe this'll slow him down a little.".

He was dressed for his desk job,not for going for a swim. He made the kid get out of the truck and hook it.

I was thinking the same thing. How much water was inhaled through the various drive train vents.

Reminds me of a place on the Brazos river near Glen Rose TX.

It's gone now, but there was a place you could drive off the road and down under a low bridge. The river bed was mostly flat rock and gravel. You could drive around on it, varying depths from just a couple inches to as deep as you dared!

Problem was if you didn't know where the channel was, it was easy to drop off into water several feet deep. There were also gravel bars with soft spots. The 4x4's liked to push their luck, but when one sank it was quite entertaining watching them get it out! Not unusual to see some kid down there in the family car spinning donuts on the slick rocks, either sink the car or limp it out with the exhaust system dragging behind! LOL

It was a popular swimming hole, party spot... It was free, unsupervised. Many times the partys would get out of hand, too much drinking, under age drinking. I guess that's what got it closed down. They built a new bridge, dug out the road and fenced it off.

why would you back your tractor into deep water when they should have put a strap through the doors and pulled it to dry land ,why risk a 100,000 tractor for a 10,000 van HUH

,why risk a 100,000 tractor for a 10,000 van HUH

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Heck, it wouldn't even have to make money sense for me to do it that way.

Last Monday I went up to the river to pull a son of a cousin's Polaris UTV out. $5000 truck stayed on dry ground to pull the stuck $10K UTV with 60' or so of straps and chain. No way was I going in the river and chance both of us being stuck. Besides, I got to stay dry while the kid got to get soaked hooking it up.

Back in my young days I did a lot of dirt biking on weekends. I had a smaller Honda, don't remember the model. We were in a pasture and came up on a narrow, maybe 10 foot wide stream. The water looked shallow so I started across it with the dirt bike. In the middle I hit the channel and down in the deep water I went, the deepest was water up to the bottom of the bike's seat. I lifted my feet above the water and gunned it and made it through. When the bike engine went under everything got quiet except for the gurgling exhaust but the bike was still pulling. It would have been a long walk back to the pickup pushing that bike if it would have ingested water.

The water is a few degrees above freezing and rushing by very fast. I?ll take climbing out the back window over wading around in that stuff. He?s not wearing a helmet and life jacket for the heck of it.

After living most of my life in Flash Flood Alley (Central Texas) the rule of thumb is Turn Around, Don't Drown. But every flash flood several do.

One year we vacationed on Lake Marble Falls....aka Lake LBJ these days as you well know. We camped in a campground maybe within the city limits. The campground apparently existed as the land was unsuitable for anything else: Conspicuously posted were signs warning: If a big rain comes "Get outta Dodge". There was a horse shoe in the river/creek/whatever it was at the location of the camp and apparently what you are talking about comes across the shoe rather that follow the normal course.

That was the summer of 1960 and the vacation where I almost drowned in the Colorado River at the MF dam which was part of some hydroelectric system and operated as power was required. I was fishing the rip rap just below the dam for white bass. All of a sudden, with out the REQUIRED WARNING HORN I hear this rumbling noise and looking at the gate, all I see is water and it got higher and higher, swept me off the rocks and down the river. Almost didn't make it.

Here's the kicker: My mother was standing up on the side of the dam, where the concrete deflectors are, and saw me struggling, going under and all and there was nothing she could do about it......had to be hard on her. What's funny was that I was under water, couldn't get to the surface, moving down river and here is my thought: Do I dump my rod and reel, stringer of fish, or my 10 quart bait bucket, tied to my shirt. My mind processes the options: I need the rod and reel to continue fishing; I caught the fish and they were going to stay with me; I can use artificial baits and don't need the bait bucket. Off comes the shirt and away it and the bucket go and I make it to the top and a BIG gulp of air. What's funny is that the idea that I was fixing to breathe water instead of air never occurred to me.

Off comes the shirt and away it and the bucket go and I make it to the top and a BIG gulp of air. What's funny is that the idea that I was fixing to breathe water instead of air never occurred to me.[/quote]

Great story, glad you made it. I probably would have sunk like a stone.

(quoted from post at 08:13:05 06/01/18) This is pretty typical for Iceland. Tourist will rent 4X4, see glacial river and try to cross. Even experienced drivers with monster trucks have difficulty sometimes. Not my photo and in all fairness I don't know that this driver was a visitor to Iceland, but probably was. This was just a few days ago.

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Bit of a stretch to think this was a tourist. What kind of tourist rents a white delivery van with "Don't Worry, Be S*xy" on the side? Never seen one of those sitting on the lot at Hertz. I mean, unless this "tourist" drove his van to Iceland... Oh, wait, that's kind of hard to do.

More likely happened the same way cars and trucks get swept away here during flooding. Idiot local yoko thinks he/she can just blast right through water running across a road and finds out the hard way it was deeper and faster than they thought.

Grouse

Just brings home the point that the person in harms way is less concerned about what's going on than the "helpless" bystanders. Thanks for the good
wish. Every time something happens where I did something to improve somebody's life, I just wonder to myself if I was saved for that occurrence. Who
knows.

There are many spots in Iceland where you cross a river via a ford.

In the O.P. picture you can see the approach on the other side.
With a tour bus waiting to or trying to decide on crossing or not.
The sign at edge of river likely tells drivers to cross at their own risk. And not to cross when you can't see the green paint below the red paint on a pole.

Bit of a stretch to think this was a tourist. What kind of tourist rents a white delivery van with "Don't Worry, Be S*xy" on the side? Never seen one of those sitting on the lot at Hertz. I mean, unless this "tourist" drove his van to Iceland... Oh, wait, that's kind of hard to do.

--No, you won't find this truck at Hertz, but you will find it at one of the other rental places in Iceland that converts various vehicles into campers. This one is a Land Rover, not a delivery van. Most Icelanders know not to put themselves and others at risk, but, yes--the truck could have been rented to an Icelander. Possible but unlikely. The logo on the side is the company's quirky appeal to the mostly young people who flock to Iceland for adventure.