When your vehicle’s tires lose traction with the road surface, it is hydroplaning. If you’re driving in the rain and there’s more water on the road than your tires can safely push away, you could find yourself unable to control the steering, speed and braking of your vehicle. Without control of your vehicle, you could easily slide into other cars or worse, slide over into oncoming traffic or slide off the road and hit any number of things.

If it’s just stopped raining, there may be areas of roadway that still have puddles, and that’s all it takes for a vehicle to hydroplane and lose control. Once you hit a puddle of any depth or a wet area of roadway, there’s water pressure in front of the wheels that pushes the water under the tires.

At that point, your tires are actually skimming the surface of the water as they’re separated from the road surface by that thin layer of water and therefore, they lose traction and start sliding.

Vehicle hydroplaning can be extremely dangerous depending on the road surface, surrounding vehicles or other obstacles, or even worse on a back road where you may end up sliding down an embankment.

Causes of Hydroplaning

• The amount of water or depth of the water on road surfaces. There doesn’t have to be a lot of water on the road surface to start hydroplaning. One puddle, if it’s deep enough, can cause loss of traction and sliding.
• When the tires lose traction with the road and virtually just skim the surface of the water, hydroplaning occurs.
• Driving too fast for the road conditions can cause hydroplaning since the tires may be rotating faster than they can displace the water from the tread.
• Improperly inflated tires can easily cause a vehicle to hydroplane. Whether your tires are under- or over-inflated, they can lose contact with the road surface, which will cause the vehicle to slide on top of the water instead of the tire tread displacing the water efficiently.
• Worn tires won’t have enough tread to displace the water and maintain efficient contact with a wet road and in effect cause hydroplaning. So it’s important to check your tires’ tread depth, especially if you tend to put a lot of miles on them. It’s recommended to replace your tires when the tread measures 1/16 of an inch.
• As mentioned, the entire road surface doesn’t have to be wet to cause hydroplaning. Puddles of water on the road can be enough to cause loss of traction.
• Overloading a vehicle; carrying more weight than the vehicle is intended to carry causes more pressure on the tires than recommended and the tires can lose enough contact with the road to start hydroplaning.
• The wrong size tires for your vehicle can even cause it to hydroplane, so be sure to only put tires on your vehicle that are meant for that vehicle.
• The tread pattern on the tires can be a cause for a vehicle to hydroplane. Some tread patterns may look cool, but may not displace water efficiently enough for the tire to maintain traction.

How to Recover from Hydroplaning

You want to experience a safe recovery from hydroplaning to avoid any accidents. There are ways to get out of it. Here’s what to do when hydroplaning:

• First, remain calm. It’s best to not panic and to understand what your vehicle is doing and why.
• Immediately take your foot off the accelerator. If you’re using cruise control, turn it off by gently tapping on the brake once. You never want to use your brakes in response to sliding. That may make the situation worse and you may skid out of control completely.
• You need to regain control of your steering and the best way to do that is to realign your tires in the same direction as your vehicle. Even though it might seem like the wrong thing to do, you need to turn your steering wheel into the slide, in the same direction that your car is sliding. This puts your tires in direct alignment to your vehicle and aids in getting back control of your car.
• Once you feel your tires regaining traction with the road surface, slow your car by tapping gently on the brakes and you’ll drive out of the hydroplane.

After you’ve fully recovered, you may want to pull off the road and take a few breaths to completely calm down before venturing on in your travels.

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April showers bring May flowers. But, for Texans, they bring hydroplaning mayhem as well as vehicle drownings. In fact, Texas leads the Nation in vehicle drownings. Kind of sad, isn’t it? That they talk about the vehicle drowning and not the people in it??…Cold. Apparently, it’s mostly pick-up trucks. Really??In Texas??Go figure.

If you live in Texas, you may have noticed that, when it rains, they change those electronic signs on the freeway. You know, the ones they use for traffic updates as well as for Amber Alerts for missing children or missing elderly (there was one last week that read “Missing Elderly from New York City”…I thought, “Damn! Those old people can really hitchhike … if they think they’ve made it all the way down here to Texas”).

So now, when it’s raining, they change those signs to read TURN AROUND AND DON’T DROWN. It’s a catchy little jingle to make it easy to remember when it’s raining and you see water covering the road. Don’t just plow through it. “Turn Around and Don’t Drown”. They come out with these poetic little catch-phrases, like “Click It Or Ticket” for seat belt laws. And, “Don’t Mess With Texas” for littering laws. You know, somewhere, there’s a guy sitting in a little room with a bottle of Jack Daniels and he’s paid to write all this poetic stuff. And the job probably comes with dental and a 401k…..I want that job!

TADD is a National Weather Service campaign to warn people of the hazards of walking or driving a vehicle through flood waters. Where does the false sense that “my heavy vehicle will keep me safe” come from? Perhaps from the false trust of the weight of the vehicle you drive. Your 3,000 lb or more vehicle will remain in contact with the road surface…that it is too heavy to float? Think about that for a moment. Aircraft carriers weighing 97,000 tons float. Vehicles (and ships) float because of buoyancy. In fact, most cars can be swept away in 18-24 inches of moving water. Trucks and SUV’s do not fare much better with an additional 6-12 inches of clearance.

As for hydroplaning, it can occur at speeds as low as 30mph. Not even very fast. In fact, if you were driving any slower, you’d be in reverse. But it could be frightening if you’re doing, say, freeway speed. That’s why it’s important to remember to not use your cruise control when it’s raining. My sister, Bobbie Sue (I know, right??) has a new Mercedes with safety features you wouldn’t believe. It actually has a sensor that will not allow you to engage your cruise control when there’s precipitation. It also has a feature that will pull the car back into your lane if you start to drift off the road. I think they call that the DWI Designated Driver feature. By the way….you don’t really believe we actually call my sister Bobbie Sue, do you? She’s 13 years younger than me. We’ve always called her “Oops.”

Hydroplaning occurs when water gets trapped between the grooves in your tires and road. And then you find yourself waterskiing in your car (I hear if you can get it up on two wheels, you can slalom ski…they probably do that in JackAss The Movie 3D…I haven’t seen it yet).Some people panic and slam on the brakes when they begin to hydroplane. Not cool. The best thing to do…take your foot off the gas. Let the car naturally slow down on its own (and then change your pants). The trapped water will then dissipate out from between the tires and the road. So now, your tires are connecting with the pavement. Instead of riding up on top of the water…like Jesus.

Here’s a good mental checklist during rainy season…

• Monitor the NOAA Weather Radio, or your favorite news source for vital weather related information.
• Do not drive into flooded areas. Six inches of water will reach the bottom of most passenger cars causing loss of control and possible stalling.
• If floodwaters rise around your car, abandon the car and move to higher ground if you can do so safely. You and the vehicle can be quickly swept away. A foot of water will float many vehicles. And two feet of rushing water can carry away most vehicles including sport utility vehicles (SUV’s) and pick-ups.
• Do not walk through moving water. Six inches of moving water can make you fall. If you have to walk in water, walk where the water is not moving. Use a stick to check the firmness of the ground in front of you.
• Do not use your cruise control feature when driving in rainy conditions.
• Keep reading this blog every week…(I just threw that in)

Until next week…be safe…don’t take any bone-headed chances when driving (or dating)….try to preserve your life, so you remain on this Earth about as long as the styro cup you just threw out the window of your car.

Daun Thompson

( Daun Thompson is a comedienne, writer, artist and lightning rod of reality )

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