[MikeB06]

I am currently at home in NC and we are getting a heavy mass of thunderstorms, rain, and some tornadoes in the northwestern part of the state. So, the local news station has been covering these storms constantly since early this afternoon, and they are warning against driving due to some flash floods and water on the roads. So, our anchorman, who has been at the station a number of years, and even spoke at my high school's graduation a year before I graduated, was describing the dangers of driving on the roads with standing water, and he says:

"we recommend avoiding driving in this water if at all possible, even with larger, heavier cars, since the tires are filled with air, even a couple inches can just sweep your car off the road."

Apparently, unbenownst to me and my father, the buoyancy of inflated rubber tires is alone enough to keep a car afloat. I think I'll remember that if I ever decide to buy a boat, instead I'll just buy a couple oars and take my truck out on the lake to fish

. Anyone else in this area of the country experiencing all this rain and storms from Hurricane Dennis?

 

[john_jcb]

Sorry you are getting the bad weather. Here in the Midwest it has been beautiful for a week but the heat is returning later this week. He may have been wrong about why but flowing water in a flash flood can be very dangerous. I lived in the Mohave desert for many years and remember being out during one particularly bad storm. I was up in the hills when the storm hit. A torrent of water followed and from where I was on top of a ridge I could see boulders far larger than cars being swept along. Every year people die in the flash floods. I have also seen a car that was swept away with its occupants inside. It ended up in a hole filled with silt killing both people. Not a fun way to go.

 

[450]

I have never really worried about floods because I've lived on high ground all my life. I've moved quite a bit but we've always managed to live in a high area.

 

[MikeB06]

Yeah, I know how dangerous flash floods are. My dad and I just thought it was very funny that our anchorman attributed the dangers of flooding for a car to the air-filled tires, as if cars would just float away in an inch or two of flowing water. Cars can lose traction and hydroplane in a couple inches of water while driving, but it is due to the loss of friction with the road. Cars float away in floods when the height of the water reaches the car's body. I am not trying to make light of the dangerous nature of floods at all, our anchorman just made a bit of a funny

.

 

[john_jcb]

It is amazing how many stupid things you will hear if you pay attention. Speaking of friction it would be interesting to ask him why slick tires are dangerous. You would not believe how many people think you need tread for good traction on dry roads

 

[rickcr42]

"I am telling the truth............."

 

[warubozu]

LOL, I don't know where that anchorman got that info from. Maybe he was thinkiing that the tires were filled with Helium.

 

[ajt976]

Hmm...interesting. I seriously doubt a couple inches of standing water could take a car or truck off the ground. I mean what about when you go to launch your boat off the ramp, I don't know about you but my truck is backed pretty far down in the water (I guess it's just the tongue weight of the trailer that's holding the back end down huh?

)

Maybe he was thinking of some other kind of vehicle. I thought I heard somewhere that monster trucks can float (to an extent) on water due to the larger amount of air in the tires. Also, I've 'floated' my ATV in a pond before, granted it's a lighter 2x4 model and I had to get off of it first.

 

[chosen1]

Believe it or not, I have seen a truck float. However it was a (relatively) light Ford Ranger with 38" tires. It didn't float like a raft, but it was just buoyant enough for two or three of the tires to lift off the bottom.

 

[warubozu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ajt976 I thought I heard somewhere that monster trucks can float (to an extent) on water due to the larger amount of air in the tires.

You heard correct, the monster truck Big Foot #1 did it in a lake. Saw a video of it where Big Foot was afloat with it's thottle partially wide open and manage to paddle itself across the lake. The huge and deep tire threads acted like boat paddles which allowed it to cross the lake.


http://www.bigfoot4x4.com/firsts.html

 

[MikeB06]

That's interesting about Big Foot floating. I just wanted to update another genius comment made by this news crew. Talking about the low amount of tornadoes that actually were spotted, our weatherman said: "It turns out we had more tornado warnings cancelled than made"

Maybe the newscrew started wigging out after about 4 straight hours on the air. I think they started covering the storms at around 2 and ended up staying on the entire time until after the 6 o'clock news.

 

[SptsNaz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeB06 That's interesting about Big Foot floating. I just wanted to update another genius comment made by this news crew. Talking about the low amount of tornadoes that actually were spotted, our weatherman said: "It turns out we had more tornado warnings cancelled than made"

Are you sure he wasn't just joking around? Sounds like sarcasm to me...

 

[KYTGuy]

Just remember - the pretty faces/ infobabes/news readers are just chosen for their winning smiles, and their tone of voice...they are not trained in anything technical, and since they are simpletons when it comes to math and science, they can say the silliest things while trying to lend some human touch/personal color to a story.

now, as to the copy they read, it is written by journalism majors, and english majors, and communications majors, not scientists or people versed in advanced technical subjects...

 

[MikeB06]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SptsNaz Are you sure he wasn't just joking around? Sounds like sarcasm to me...

I'm pretty sure he wasn't joking around, I couldn't detect any sarcasm in his voice as he was stating it in a very normal way. The two reporters I am talking about aren't the typical local news people, they have been with the station for probably around ten years or better, so I wouldn't tag them as the "strictly read off the prompter Ron Burgundy style" type reporters. They are generally pretty legit and have the familiar-face/part of the community quality about them. What was funny about the floating tire comment was that the guy made it as a "personal tip" type comment after reading the prompted news.

 

[TWIFOSP]

Well, he's actually pretty much right. Though poorly worded. The bouancy of the tires in a lighter car IS enough to make a car lose it's contact patch with the ground. It won't exactly make your car float, but it can lift it a centimeter, enough to make your tires lose contact patch. If the water is fast and high enough, you now have lateral forces being applied and you car can be swept away. It takes less than a centimeter of raising the tires off of the ground to cause big trouble. The tires don't neccesarily have to "leave" the ground to become ineffective. All the water has to do is take enough weight from underneath to make the contact patch's grip less than the lateral forces of the sweeping water.

Usually cars hydroplane rather than "float" which causes most problems, but fast sweeping water can get under your tires, filled with air or not.

Two inches of fast sweeping water can carry a sedan off the road. Just think about how much volume of water that actually is.

Archimedes stated: The bouyant force on an object is equal to the wegith of the fluid displaced by that object. As I stated above, this basically means that in order for the car to become bouyant, all that has to happen is for the force of the moving water to be greater than the friction of the 4 quarter of inch contact patches that exist on each tire. Water weighs 62.4 lbs per cubic foot. We'll say that stream water will weigh about the same, even though it probably weighs more, given that it has sediment. The pressure of moving water increases with the square of it's velocity. It only takes a few inches of water moving at 10 mph to sweep a car off the road.

Food for thought.