If you ended up in the mud with your car these days, you are not alone. Due to the endless rain showers, many roadsides have turned into a mud bath and many drivers get stuck with their cars. But there is no point in calling the ANWB roadside assistance service, because it is not available for you in this case. And so the phone is now ringing off the hook at many towing companies.
“Where we normally have to tow away a car stuck in the mud once a month, this now happens three to four times a day,” says Monique from Autohulpdienst Ben Heiltjes from Cuijk. “If drivers want to turn on a sandy path or meadow, this is generally possible without any problems. But that is not possible in this weather, because the water is literally up to our lips.”
“Sometimes we even get a call from the ANWB asking if we can help.”
These are also busy days at Sleeping Service Totaal in Breda. “Our six tow trucks are running at full speed,” says Fahd Berehou of Sleeping Service Totaal in Breda. “We drive back and forth during the day, but we also have to get out of bed at night. Sometimes the ANWB even calls us to ask if we can help. Because they are not coming for something that you could have prevented yourself.”
And our reporter Rene van Hoof also experienced this personally on Wednesday. He was on his way for a story about a flooded cemetery in Eindhoven. When he drove the wrong way and wanted to turn around on a bicycle street, things went wrong. He drove onto the side of the road, felt his car sinking and was then stuck in a mud puddle for two hours.
“I called the roadside assistance, but they don’t get cars out of the mud,” he says. “My insurance company told me to call a towing company, but that could cost me a lot of money. Fortunately, I was eventually helped by a colleague.”
“Look around you before you drive into something to see if it is possible.”
Monique Heiltjes believes that motorists should think a little more carefully when they go on the road. “It has been raining constantly since October. With a sober Dutch mind you could imagine that it is wet along the roadsides and you will sink,” says Heiltjes. “So look around you before you drive into something to see if it is possible.”
That is also the lesson Rene learned. “In retrospect, I should have known with all that rain. But a roadside like that is covered with leaves, so I didn’t think about it at all,” he says. “I will remember that job at that cemetery for a long time. My car was almost buried.”
