A Florida man was arrested Tuesday morning after he drove through a closed beach and into the ocean in Volusia County.
According to the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office, shortly before 9 a.m., deputies were called to New Smyrna Beach after a vehicle drove around a closed gate and accessed the beach without paying the toll fee.
What is it with US citizens and driving cars into beaches?
well, usually, it’s the tide. People either forget to check where the tide is, forget when the tide starts coming in, or loose track of time. they go out on the flats during low tide, set up their party, maybe get a little drunk.
Maybe whatever they’re driving was never meant to go on sand. maybe they don’t know how to drive on sand and get stuck.
and maybe it’s not a problem exclusive to “US citizens”… (it happens everywhere there’s a beach.)
But why drive onto the flats in the first place? Here we park up and walk to the beach. Pretty sure it’s illegal to drive on the beach too…
Depends on the beach, if it’s illegal or not. Swimming places, definitely not.
As for why do it? Off road driving is fun, your car can provide electrical power for things like speakers, lights, and stuff, carry firewood, coolers (full of food. And booze,); sand toys, chairs, towels… elderly family that can’t walk, clamming or fishing gear; kites or surfboards or whatever else…. and to get out to a place away from crowds.
At the places people go swimming, it’s generally not allowed, sure, and same for private beaches. But there’s plenty of public beachfront that isn’t your sandy swimming spot
People are dumb and lazy
A local beach near me in Ireland has people parking exclusively on the beach, that said, it’s a massive breach with plenty of space.
I never have heard of anyone’s car getting overtaken by the tide, but perhaps the local farmer has pulled a few people out
Another local beach is as you described, no parking on the beach, walk on only. I think it depends on the kind of beach and the way things are set up
And that’s stopped people when, exactly?
It seems that in some countries that means less people do the thing and in other countries people will now do exactly the thing, turned up to eleven just because someone told them “no”. And they do not like the concept of “no”.
Around here they quite often like to drive their cars into obviously flooded roads, that’s always a good laugh. But they tend not to drive them on to beaches.
Since the dawn of time man has yearned to destroy the beach
Check out the town of Carova Beach, North Carolina. Accessible only by driving on the beach or by water.
There’s A Facebook page dedicated to taking pictures of people getting stuck. Apparently all you have to do is air down your tires to like 12 psi and keep to a reasonable speed, but a lot of people think their car, truck, or SUV can handle sand without those precautions.