Last Updated on February 20, 2022
Leave it Arizona to create a law designed to target drivers who lack common sense: the so-called Stupid Motorist Law may apply in a tour-bus accident.
When a tour-bus driver decided to brave a flooded road with 33 people aboard, he almost certainly didn’t expect what happened next: flood waters swept the bus off the road and turned it onto its side. Fortunately, there were no major injuries and everyone was able to get out of the bus through windows and reach dry land before emergency crews had time to arrive on the scene.
The area was under a flash flood warning, following three-quarters of an inch of rain in one hour, and water on a road should be a warning sign to any motorist not to risk driving ahead.
Yet nearly every time there’s a significant flood here in Charleston, a coastal city that sits below sea level, there’s almost always at least one car that winds up stuck in a flooded road. When I worked in Richmond, remnants of a tropical storm ± if memory serves, it was Tropical Storm Gaston — poured so much rain over the city that a popular area of downtown called Shockoe Bottom was so inundated with water that we saw partially-submerged cars literally floating down the streets.
Yes, it should be common sense not to drive through flood waters.
But in Arizona, a “Stupid Motorist Law” may pave the way for punishment in the case of the flipped tour bus. ABC News reports that under this law, “anyone who drives onto a public street or highway that’s’temporarily covered by a rise in water level is liable for the expenses of any emergency response that is required to remove from the public street or highway the driver or any passenger in the vehicle that becomes inoperable.'”
The tour bus company claims neither the driver nor the company were aware of flash flood warnings in the area and that there wasn’t “a single warning sign anywhere near that road to indicate that there would be a flash flood.”
Other than actual flood waters on the road, they did not add.
Arizona’s law allows two scenarios in which a driver can be charged under this “Stupid Motorist Law,” which I’m fairly certain is not its official name, though it’d be very funny if it were. The first such scenario would be if a driver goes around barricades that would otherwise block off a flooded area. In this case, there were no barricades. The second, however, would be if a driver is charged for reckless driving because he drove into a flooded area without barricades. So far, the driver hasn’t been charged with anything, so until a decision is made on a reckless driving charge, there’s no way to know whether this law would even have the chance to kick in.
Common sense counts during flooding.
According to insurance company Progressive, citing a report from FEMA, flash floods are the number one weather-related killer in the United States — most flood fatalities happen because people try to drive through deadly waters rather than avoid them:
The average automobile can be swept off the road in 12 inches of moving water, and roads covered by water are prone to collapse. Attempting to drive through water also may stall your engine, with the potential to cause irreparable damage if you try to restart the engine. If you come upon a flooded street, take an alternate route.
It may well have seemed a reasonably safe bet that if there were less than 12 inches of moving water, the weight of a tour bus with 33 passengers would have been too much. But Mother Nature is unpredictable, and even when a barricade hasn’t been placed because the location is relatively remote, it still has to be up to the driver to evaluate the situation as best he can and take action he feels is most appropriate.
I used to own a Ford Econoline E350 van that had about 2
foot ground clearance, I went through a floored street and the water was almost
up to my floorboards. Once I got to the other side this little Toyota attempted
to cross the flooded road. He got half way through and the car stalled with the
water almost to the top of the doors. As he waded back to my side I asked him
why he tried going through water that was almost 2 feet deep and he said I made
and he thought that he could make it. Duh.
Now I drive a Prius and I would never think a driving
through a flooded street. Can you imagine the flash if the batteries shorted
out?
I, personally, will turn around and find another route if the road is covered by water. Â You can’t always know how deep the water is so it is better to be safe than sorry. Â
As far as the bus goes, you’d think that it would have been too heavy to be toppled, but apparently not!