Whoops! van and trailer submerged on Oregon coast

[QinReno]

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There was a recent discussion on Expedition Portal, "Do It For The 'Gram"
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with over 300,000 views it has surely rewarded them.
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Also note that when their rescuers teamed up to help them, 

Hopefully the 300,000 viewers learned a few things, hopefully one of which was not to reward the two morons.
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Re their rescuers: you'll notice that the "front" end of the RV came very close to sliding over the edge as the white truck was pulling the back end backwards up the hill. So, the morons piled mistake on top of mistake. Would have been much better to call a tow company who actually knew better on what they were doing. "Hey, if we pull the back end up the hill, then the front end will swing around and go over the edge, and pull us with it". DU-UH.

Who said this: "Stupid is as stupid does".

 

[QinReno]

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If I wanted to go somewhere that I could even conceive of as tricky, I'd probably drive the tow vehicle down it first, by itself,just to check things out.  
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Probably part of the problem with some of the folks who get themselves into unnecessary trouble is that they are too young to take things very seriously yet.  They instinctively think they have their whole lives ahead of them and plenty of time to make up for anything they lose.
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You start stupid, and hopefully learn enough quickly enough that you don't die in the meantime. The best line in Top Gun the movie is where he says: "the Defense Dept regrets to inform you that your sons are dead because they were .... stupid".

I had Jeep Cherokees and drove 4WD roads for 20-years in Colorado. After a few fun situations, I learned to walk up certain roads first before attempting to drive up them, and some I ended up hiking up.

 

[bonvanroulez]

Hopefully the 300,000 viewers learned a few things, hopefully one of which was not to reward the two morons.

Every time that video is viewed or shared it rewards the two morons.  And what too many viewers learn from it is that there's actual money to be made in doing stupid things on Youtube and so start yet another click-bait Youtube channel, or Instagram.

Re their rescuers:

They had a choice to trust kind but possibly unknowledgeable strangers to get them out of a jam, or to call in the professionals, for which a recovery like that can easily cost in the thousands. I talked to a tow operator in the Death Valley area that told me that a $5,000 bill for a back-country recovery is not unusual, and in one extreme case, on top of a giant tow bill the owners were on the hook for a helicopter recovery of a vehicle hopelessly stuck in Death Valley NP.

 

[QinReno]

That was their 3rd mistake, they should have had highway insurance in case they get the RV into some bad situation.

In regards to seeing people doing stupid things and then going monkey-see, monkey-do - well, you can't save people from themselves. When you get old enough, you realize that. I imagine more people learned what not to do from that video than wished to try it themselves afterwards.

 

[bonvanroulez]

  they should have had highway insurance in case they get the RV into some bad situation.

There have been threads here on roadside assistance and how policies don't cover towing beyond maintained roads. I was not aware that there were any companies that cover backcountry/off-road/off-pavement towing or recovery.

I once watched a big semi tow rig recover a big class A that was buried in soft sand. The operator spent several hours setting up numerous winch lines to extract the RV undamaged. Someone there said the tow ($$$) was covered by their Good Sam policy, but that may have been because they were within a hundred or so many feet of a maintained, paved road.

 

[QinReno]

There have been threads here on roadside assistance and how policies don't cover towing beyond maintained roads. I was not aware that there were any companies that cover backcountry/off-road/off-pavement towing or recovery.

In that case, all the more reason not to be stupid. I've never gotten stuck on roads I hiked into.

Just the same, you did notice how the front end of the RV slid down towards the drop off as the white truck was pulling it uphill. So, the guy in the pickup might have lost his truck too. Those Class-C RVs do weigh in the range of 18,000 pounds. Scenario: RV goes over cliff and pickup truck comes down on top of it, smashing it to pieces. That'd be fun for the insurance companies to sort out.

 

[Dingfelder]

I was thinking about the guy more than the truck. It could have happened before he had a chance to get out.

 

[QinReno]

I was thinking about the guy more than the truck.  It could have happened before he had a chance to get out.

Luckily, everyone survived. But it's fun to analyze it and think up all the things they did wrong, just in case. 1, 2, 3, 4, ..., oh heck stop counting. Easy to do when you're sitting in your chair and looking at a monitor screen.

 

[Dingfelder]

Luckily, everyone survived. But it's fun to analyze it and think up all the things they did wrong, just in case. 1, 2, 3, 4, ..., oh heck stop counting. Easy to do when you're sitting in your chair and looking at a monitor screen.

Yup.  The whole thing made me feel squirrelly all the way through on multiple levels.

I don't think the guy doing the towing had any idea the RV would fishtail out, unfortunately.  The video is a strange mix of hubris and ignorance mixed with helpfulness ... I don't feel terribly comfortable assigning guilt or its level to the people in it ...

 

[QinReno]

I'm not thinking in terms of "guilt". That is totally irrelevant. The issue is purely educational. How things might have been done differently at every step of the way to proactively avoid doing the wrong thing and make matters even worse. It's a process of analysis. Obviously the first thing is not to get into the situation in the first place. But once it's happened, there is another decision to be made at each and every step.

 

[Dingfelder]

Guilt in terms of fault rather than sin.

 

[QinReno]

Nothing to do with guilt in any form, only good decisions and bad decisions, and nothing else. Some of us are experts at learning by mistake.

 

[OregonDeb]

Driving on the beach in Gearhart Oregon is one of the things a lot of folks do. You need to keep your eye on the ocean because while the tide goes out it will always come back in and much quicker than you expect.

 

[Moxadox]

Reno I have seen that video before.

some advice for newbies, in the western deserts NEVER EVER drive on dirt roads right after a rain storm. most are clay based and when the clay gets wet it's like ice. as you can see in the video the more they tried to fight gravity the worse it got. gravity is a mother efer on off camber roads and when they get slick it's 1,000 times worse. you could tell he didn't know what he was doing in the first puddle. he tried to avoid the puddle by driving closer to the edge, big no, no. all driving through a puddle does is get your vehicle wet. driving to close the edge could have disastrous effects.

it's much better to wait a couple of days and let the road dry out. even with my big old 1 ton 4x4 I wait it out.

highdesertranger

Holy crap, "THAT" video! I've had to drive on wet clay roads, and this vid gives me the fantods reeeeal bad. He really did come very close to buying the farm. If you have any hint of a choice, just wait for it to dry out! And if you must travel, put chains on. In a pinch you can gather dry brush (careful of snakes) and stuff it under your wheels for traction. I had to do that in NM a couple of years ago when I was on a forest road and got caught by a monsoon storm, instant clay soup! Slid sideways off the road into a ditch, passenger side wheels were off the ground. Stuffed brush under the driver's side wheels and got out of there but it was terrifying. Didn't have chains with me. Carry chains even in the summer now.

The Dire Wolfess