TikTok car-fishing craze leads to closure of ancient Rufford ford

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Deep in the English countryside is an ancient river crossing that has been used, in various forms, for at least 1,000 years. It featured in the Domesday Book, attracted Cistercian monks who built an abbey nearby, and more recently served as a handy shortcut for Nottinghamshire commuters. But Rufford ford has now been closed, after clips of cars driving through it attracted hundreds of millions of views on TikTok.

“That ford has been there since Adam was a lad,” said Neil Clarke, a local councillor. He decided to close the crossing this month after requests from the fire and police services, who were unable to cope with a small rural lane becoming one of the most famous roads in the world.

“With the age of social media it has become a tourist attraction. People are driving there specifically to have a go at going through the ford. They don’t realise how deep it is and suddenly their car starts floating,” Clarke said.

Rufford ford cuts across Rainworth Water, a small river east of Mansfield. When the weather is dry, the river crosses the road as a small trickle that is easily traversed. But after heavy rain it becomes several feet deep and up to 30ft (9 metres) wide, and the crossing resembles a log flume at a theme park. Over-optimistic drivers have a moment of realisation as their cars are turned into a boat. As their engines fill up with water, they are left begging onlookers to tow them out.

For years this was a local concern. Then in 2020, a local teenager called Ben Gregory started uploading videos he had filmed to YouTube of cars conking out in the water. Suddenly, a small Nottinghamshire lane was a global tourist attraction with an obsessive fanbase.

“People love seeing pain and failure,” said another YouTuber, who insisted on being referred to by his online username midlifecrisis101x. “They don’t want to seeing people winning. What they want to do is to watch idiots and go: ‘I’m having a really bad day but he’s having a worse one.'”

This 50-year-old YouTuber has spent months filming at the ford alongside Gregory. He said audiences delighted in watching other people failing. “It’s wanton stupidity. You’ve got a perfectly good motor vehicle and a sign that says road closed. Why are you going to put your car in that?”

Capturing a car failing can take hours of time, with the YouTubers filming hundreds of crossings before getting footage that elicits peak schadenfreude, such as a waterlogged BMW or Mercedes. “It is relaxing there – it’s like fishing. But you’re fishing for cars,” midlifecrisis101x said.

As for the motivation of those crossing the river, he believes there is a deep “bloodlust” on behalf of drivers who want to drive a vehicle worth tens of thousands of pounds through a flooded ford. “It’s like when somebody knows they’re about to do something wrong, they won’t look around, and they carry on and do it anyway.”

The global interest in Rufford ford quickly became hard to manage. Large crowds turned up on the narrow, tree-lined country lane, parking their cars and bringing their families to spend a day cheering drivers attempting the crossing. Local businesses did a strong trade in ice-creams. Nottinghamshire police had to divert officers to manage numbers. Other YouTubers and influencers turned up, creating a bank of cameras filming every crossing. Occasionally, the fire service had to send staff to help pull cars out.

Midlifecrisis101x said: “I had a guy come over from Germany and spend a week in his car in the car park. Twice. He’d just sit there with his supply of food and watch.”

The videos became valuable YouTube content, with the creators receiving a cut of the site’s advertising revenue, earning tens of thousands of pounds.

But the crowd control really began to get out of control over the course of this year as the videos made their way from a core loyal audience on YouTube to TikTok, where algorithm-driven recommendations drove millions of new viewers to the mill.

This intense attention provided by TikTok, according to midlifecrisis101x, resulted in a change in the type of person who was coming to the ford. “TikTok attracts a more excitable audience who want instant entertainment, they want 15 to 20 seconds of high-adrenaline consumption. The high-energy people came to Rufford ford. It was originally fishing for cars, and then TikTok brought more energy – and not in a good way.”

Clarke, who is the cabinet member responsible for highways and environment at Nottinghamshire county council, said crowds were encroaching on the road and it was becoming a public safety hazard. “We had complaints saying we’re spoiling everyone’s fun. I’m sure it’s great entertainment and people go to watch the spectacle, but I don’t think people realise there’s a lot of danger and hazard. Very quickly things like this can change to a tragedy.”

The councillor said the ever-growing online attention had caused people to attempt riskier crossings in recent months. “There was a motorcyclist who approached it at 50mph, went full pelt, and came straight off head over heels over the handlebars. He went so fast he bounced all the way along the water before collapsing on the other side in a heap. It is life-threatening.”

For now, locals will have to wait while the council decides what to do with the accidentally viral road crossing. Clarke said a replacement bridge was out of the question on cost grounds, but traffic calming measures are being considered.

Meanwhile, the group of Rufford ford YouTubers are convinced they’ve tapped into strong demand for online content about cars driving through water – and hope to recreate their camaraderie at a new site.

“It is a beautiful location and other fords aren’t the same,” said midlifecrisis101x. “But that’s why we’re focusing on the chemistry on-screen.”