- In the Netherlands, about 50 people die every year in an accident in which their vehicle ends up in water.
- It can help to know what to do if you get into the water with a car.
- Acting quickly and knowing how to act is most important. The usefulness of courses and safety products is unproven.
- Read also: These are the most dangerous provincial roads in the Netherlands
It is one of the greatest fears of many motorists: getting into the water with the car. In a sinking piece of metal, the doors of which can no longer be opened, is a stressful situation to say the least. Knowing how to act in such cases can significantly increase the chance of survival.
According to the Foundation for Scientific Research into Road Safety (SWOV) every year about 50 people die because their vehicle has fallen into water. A third of them actually die from drowning. It usually involves men and people between the ages of 18 and 24. The causes of these types of accidents vary enormously, according to the knowledge centre.
You can take all kinds of precautions to increase your chance of survival if you get into the water with a car. For example, there are courses “car on water”, where you are taught what to do if it happens to you in real life. But according to SWOV, it is unproven that these courses are actually useful. It could be that people in this panic situation leave their acquired knowledge for what it is and react very differently.
And that is why the bureau states that the usefulness of a safety hammer is also unproven. In the stressful situation, it is unclear whether people actually remember to use the product.
That does not alter the fact that it can be useful to have such a product in the car. A safety hammer can come in very handy for one of the most important parts of escaping the sinking car: getting the window open.
GREK: Buckle up, open windows, get out, kids first
According to professor Gordon Giesbrecht from the University of Manitoba in the United States, the first minute of a vehicle entering water is absolutely crucial.
Giesbrecht is an expert in cold water survival and surviving situations where cars were completely submerged. He even demonstrated this by to send a car into the water yourself and show what you are shouldn’t do in a sinking vehicle.
Giesbrecht has a mnemonic for remembering what to do if you ever end up in water with your car, GREK: Unbuckle your seatbelts. Windows open. Out. Kids first.
“You have about a minute to get out of the vehicle,” he says. That should also be plenty of time, he says, if you act quickly and don’t waste time panicking.
It can take a few minutes for a car to completely sink, but it’s important to remember to open the windows as soon as possible. If the water level outside the car rises, the pressure on the windows will increase and it may become impossible to open them. According to the professor, electric windows should still work for some time, it is the pressure from outside that is the main culprit.
If you can’t open the windows, you have to smash them. But according to Giesbrecht that is virtually impossible. You can try things you happen to have in the car, or even use a specially developed tool, but you don’t have to count on them breaking the window, according to the professor.
Opening the door won’t work: “Nothing good can happen in 60 seconds”
Giesbrecht debunks the generally accepted idea that you have to wait until the car is completely filled with water before you can open the door. The idea is that at that moment the pressure inside and outside is the same and so you have the car door should be able to open.
If a car sinks, even with the windows still closed, water will flow in through various holes such as the vent. A car is never completely watertight.
A sinking car also has the tendency to go down with the hood first. As a result, the water flows last into the trunk. And as long as there is still air in the trunk, the pressure in the car is lower than outside and you cannot open the door, says Giesbrecht.
Waiting for a fully water-filled car will probably take too long. “Nothing good can happen after the 60 seconds,” said the professor.
In the end, prevention is better than cure, according to both Giesbrecht and SWOV. But modifications to cars could also help.
For example, Giesbrecht showed in a study that windows that open automatically upon contact with water, could help. And it would also be good to ensure that electric windows also continue to work under water. Unfortunately, there are no regulations yet for both adjustments.