This Teacher needs to do his Homework.

Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.

Regards

That is pathetic.

The idiot would have been dead easy to find RMD.

His family knew he was travelling between William Creek and Coober Pedy, and not hearing from him for over 12 hours, that’s when the Police from Coober Pedy started driving the road in reverse to try and find him.

When they could not travel any further themselves because of the mud, that’s when they called up the cavalry…AKA Trevor Wright from William Creek, who then flew the route and was able to find the idiot, land his plane on a solid section of road and the rest is history.

I just love the bit that he could not ring 000. When are idiots going to realise that there is no phone reception in remote areas of Australia, and then said he was almost out of water……don’t get me started on idiots that should never leave capital cities.

No doubt this chap stuffed up & shouldn't have.

My comment however is about the ageism on display in the posts here.

Recently I have seen the opposite, young people getting angry with older folk, generalising about 'Boomer mentality, entitlement & selfishness. I reacted to this by suggesting that the sentiment generalising all 'boomers' was unreasonable.

Similarly I think it unreasonable to generalise about young people as has occurred here.

Such sentiments of course have a grain of truth to them, just as the 'anti boomer' sentiment had, but these kind of sentiments only serve to set up battle lines & to cause conflict.

We should be better than that. There is as much variety among todays young people as there is in todays older age groups.

Fully agree and as I always say, they are the cheapest bit of life insurance that should be in every car.

Even if he had a PLB, I'm not sure it would be an appropriate use in his situation. As for 000, not sure about that either. What did he require, police, Ambulance or Fire and rescue? And as for nearly out of water, that's pretty funny, it was falling from the sky and puddles everywhere I would think. How hard would it be to find something to collect enough water to survive cool weather? Maybe there was more to this story, I couldn't open the link so I haven't actually read the article. It just shows how ill prepared some people are. Michael

Hi Michael

I just checked the link and it is still working.

It is the very bottom link and will open on a Tic Tok page, but just keep going and it does open

Thank you Stephen, I'll give it another try..

Absolutely using a PLB in his situation would be appropriate. I do question his ability to understand the gravity of his situation early enough to use one though. If you are in an untenable long term situation you don't have to wait until you have run out of survival options and near death to hit the button, the authorities have a liberal view of emergencies these days. I've struggled with knowing when/if I would have the 'right' to use a PLB in the past also. Not so much anymore - not that I've ever used one in anger.

Hi Aussie

Not sure if you have been to William Creek, but the road condition sign is massive, at least 3 x 2 metres and the only way to miss it……you would have to be blind, in which case he should not be on the road at all.

The next question that has not been mentioned is will he get fined for driving on a closed road and will he be charged for the air services by Trevor Wright ?

There are many more questions and answers that will never be told.

Seasons Greetings and Safe Travels.

Without a doubt he will be charged for the rescue services. Bloody idiot. Pity he didn't study common sense at uni...would be ten times better than a teaching degree...

" Pity he didn't study common sense at uni...would be ten times better than a teaching degree... )

Common sense is obviously not a subject at Uni - I recently had to work on a houseboat moored in a marina on the River Murray. Met the owner there, a 65 year old General Practitioner and to my disbelief, had his houseboat connected to the marina's on shore power supply via a 20 metre Bunnings red and yellow extension cord with about 5 metres of it totally under water !

He wasn't happy when I turned it off and unplugged it at the supply - I won't go into the discussion that followed but I think the old doctor learned something that day !

Glad I wasn't one of his patients lol


Cheers
Gazz

Another bloody idiot. Everyone knows you need a blue extension cord if you're going to place it underwater...

But the bit that says open or closed is really quite small, you have to notice that bit to know!
Reading signs isn't part of a uni degree.

RMD

I took that picture in June last year when we were last there.

When any of the Outback roads are closed, the sign for what ever closed road is red instead of the yellow with caution or green for open.

Every road on that sign would have been Red and Closed, so if that never caught his attention, he must also be colour blind.

Either way, he was totally unprepared for such a drive and I bet my left nacker, he would not have had a compressor or puncture repair gear as well.

Without knowing the length of his bog hole, MaxTrax could have helped out as well, but he would not even know what they are .

RMD

Here is a better example of an Outback Road Closed sign here in South Australia.

This was from one of our Simpson trips when we were caught out at Mungerannie for three days.

What does that RED say? As I say if he could not read a sign like this or see the RED, well there is no hope for that idiot.

Well there's ya problem it's off to the side and he would have to glance to the side to see it. If it was on the road blocking it he would have seen it when he ran into it while looking down at his phone checking for a signal.

G'day Stephen
Just an observation and I agree with what has been said, but:
The sign out from William Creek is high up and further off the road, if you are not used to looking for info you may not really notice it's content. He comes from a land of BIG Signs everywhere all day long.
The others are closer to the road and lower down in the normal vision of a driver and especially one who uses a phone screen 24/7. The RED on that one is way easier to see and notice too. Both are not aimed at the road vehicle approaching but square on to the side of the road. After the Oodna was open a few years back, After staying/working at Nilpinna, I decided to move to Algebuckina bridge for an overnight and it had rained rain up there. Road was open and so continued through to Marla. The Marla sign to Oodna isn't real easy to read/notice and I had to turn around, go back and read it to verify it was open, ie, the route I had just traversed.
People used to those signs know the ropes, new people don't.

He should have had a decent UHF radio at least, at a motorcycle accident a few more years earlier I was talking to Linny at the Pink Road house from near where this bloke got bogged. AND you can also contact Nilpinna repeater from there too.

Batt's

First of all the sign is very big and impossible not to see. I believe that the sign has now been replaced with a new electronic sign that is even clearer to see.

Cheers

Hi again RMD

Unfortunately, in his situation a UHF would have been totally useless as the signal is only line of sight. Even though it is very flat out there, there are no stations nearby that could have picked up his signal, and till 50 kilometres from Coober Pedy.

There is only two ways he could have made voice contact where he was, either a HF Radio or Satellite Phone.

Years ago we also used to use a HF radio, but the closing of direct contact with RFDS Bases around Australia and then many HF Club networks closing, my main source of emergency help is the 2 PLB;s that I carry, a SPOT tracks and satellite phone.

If none of those help, well then I am well and truly stuffed.....lol.

Cheers

Hello Stephen.
Sorry to disappoint you but after leaving Nilpinna on a previous trip I came across a motorcycle accident, rider from PtPirie. I called from that area to Nilpinna, around 70km away and talked to Helen. She said,," don't talk to me Liinny will be listen from Oodna". Barely stopped talking and Linny came on and said a rider from same group had arrived and collectively the ambulance was sent. Adam Plate, came to pick up the damage bike. He asked me about my HF or sat phone. He then said UHF don't work here as he had been here before for similar reasons. He was stunned when His wife spoke over my radio and I said to her Adam had arrived. My GME handhelds also work to trigger repeaters out to 100km, done many times. So the UHF myth of non performance is not entirely true.

That great, but very different between William Creek and Coober Pedy, no repeaters there with the exception of Anna Creek.

Your situation was very lucky and not a everyday safety feature

Stephen.
Although not relying on the UHF, previous to the above and with a different aerial on the vehicle I was at Kingscote KI, waiting for the ferry. I talked to a bloke who said I sounded a bit weak in transmission to him, I heard him clearly though. So I switched to the GME handheld and spoke again. He said, much better and asked where I was. I replied Kingscote and he mentioned he was in Ardrossan 138km away, but over water so no obstructions there. So, UHF can be quite surprising! Proprietor of Electric Bug in Adelaide sold me the current aerial and said put it up high on vehicle and it will do the job well. He was right!

Macca
I can understand the confusion you experienced.
When I travelled from Algebuckina Bridge to Oodna and then Marla, I did so only after being told by a traveller going south to Maree., the road was open. When driving from the bridge to Oodna and Marla the road, in my opinion, should have been closed. BUT, there had been rain at William creek, I saw the very dark clouds sth of Nilpinna. There must have also been rain closer to Oodna too, but no rain at all at Nilpinna, dry. It is hard to have all roads covered for CLOSED or OPEN because it changes often and is often patchy.

last time I went down the BT the sign at BV said open so off we go, when I got to Mungerannie the sign going north said closed.

I asked the roadhouse and they said "don't know"

Shortly after that another car arrived from BV and they said it is open as well.

I always take a photo of the sign when I am leaving town, much cheaper that a fine for driving on a road which is supposed to be closed.

When I drove from William Creek to Roxby Downs I was chased by the rain the whole way, the road was closed about an hour after I got to RD but I had my open sign photo just in case

He travelled where he needs better tyres suited to the task. With the Rav 4 traction system it should be ok or at least better until bottoming out if the Tyres can get some traction. Road tyres didn't work!
No law suit here.

The hybrid has poor offroad ability. A petrol engine drives the front end and an electric motor drives the rear. It isn't a 4wd/awd as we know it and when the going gets tough the systems don't communicate as well as they should. Toyota puts their proper traction control system into the petrol AWD version and it goes pretty hard offroad for an awd in so far as it keeps up with a forester etc. Agree tyres etc and the whole setup was underdone by a long shot.

I have one on order as a replacement for my 100 series . Think I might have to have a rethink.
Dave.

Sorry about that David. We did a similar exercise recently and although the fuel economy was tempting we went for another Forester for the few times it gets used in anger after watching a few comparison tests of the current crop. The hybrid does OK offroad, just not as good as the 'real' ones.

I agree Michael, that was my point above.

In the past, travellers have been stopped for a lot longer and further than 50 km from a town in the outback in their Holden by a failure of their Traumatic transmission. Sorry, Trimatic transmission. This bloke probably never played in mud in his formative years or would know, DON"T DO IT.