MINI-E #250 Weathers The Storm

It's the day after a major storm created havoc in New Jersey and there is evidence of it everywhere you go. There are trees down everywhere, streams flooding over, thousands without power and roads closed all over the place. I had the pleasure of driving home from work last night at 11:00pm right in the middle of the worst of it. There were 50mph winds and driving rain for hours. Actually, this storm has been here for three days now but last night was really the most violent. 

As I got close to home the main road to my house was closed as fallen tees took out power lines and the utility was there trying to secure the area so nobody got hurt. This forced me to drive the last 10 miles on back roads. This is a rural area and there are no streetlights and trees everywhere so I was a bit uneasy taking this route in such a bad storm, but I had no choice. There were branches down everywhere and the road was flooded in a few places but I made it. The only problem I had was one time I drove through a slightly flooded part of the road and the car went into neutral. This is common with the MINI-E's. The car doesn't have a conventional transmission and every now and then, under stressful situations, it jumps into neutral. I think it's designed to do so to avoid a situation that could damage the car, but I'm jst guessing that. I have heard of others hitting bumps or pot holes and the car goes into neutral, and other stories of people being stopped at red lights on steep inclines and seeing the same thing. The good thing is that we all know to just put it in park, shut the car off, then start it back up and it resets the problem so you are good to go. This is what I did so I was on my way in a few seconds. However the thought did occur to me that this would be the one time that it didn't work and I'd be stuck in the middle of the woods at midnight in driving rains, high winds and lightning, but my fears were short lived as I started back up and finished by journey.

So I'm happy to report that there is no truth to the myth that you'll electrocute yourself if you drive an electric car through flooded streets in the middle of a lightning storm.