POLOKWANE – According to the Automobile Association (AA) South Africa, one of the main issues motorists experience when driving in wet conditions is reduced traction. A wet road might only have half as much grip as when it’s dry, and any vehicle problems or driver errors are magnified on wet roads.
Therefore, drivers must ensure their vehicle’s shock absorbers are in good condition and the wheel alignment is correctly set. In normal conditions, a vehicle has so much traction that even with poor shocks and faulty alignment, there might still be enough breathing space to avoid an accident.
In wet weather, grip is limited. If the need arises to suddenly brake or swerve, any vehicle deficiencies may be enough to tip the balance of control away from you.
With today’s technological advanced safety features on vehicles, many motorists rely on stability control or ABS brakes to get them out of trouble.
These features provide control capabilities similar to those of a skid control expert, but they don’t change the laws of physics.
It’s nearly impossible to stay safe without visibility. If your heater, demister or wipers are deficient in any way, have them checked immediately.
One of the main dangers in wet and rainy conditions is when the tread on tyres is no longer able to channel away water, and the tyre lifts off the road surface and starts to skim across the road like a boat.
This is called aquaplaning, and it can happen even at slow speeds with little water on the road if a vehicle’s tyres are badly worn. But with enough water on the road, even new tyres can aquaplane.
If a vehicle’s front wheels’ aquaplane in a corner, the steering will stop working until the vehicle encounters a drier patch or sheds excess speed, which may not happen in time for you to avoid hitting something.
The only cure for aquaplaning is to reduce speed on wet roads, especially if they appear waterlogged. It is common to see drivers continuing to drive at or above the freeway speed limit where conditions are clearly unsafe for such speeds.
A small pothole may be all it takes for a vehicle to be pitched into obstacles along the road like barriers or to run wide into oncoming traffic.
Apart from maintaining a safe speed, also ensure to keep a safe following distance.
Wet or dry, the human reaction time is about one second, so if you follow at a speed closer than that, you have no chance of avoiding an emergency. At urban speeds, it’s easy to keep a big enough gap to stop if the vehicle ahead of you unexpectedly stops.
A three to four second gap at 60km/h will almost always enable you to react and stop on a dry surface. On a wet road, it is recommendable to extend this following distance to five or six seconds.
At higher speeds, all this changes. To react and stop when you’re travelling at 120km/h requires at least ten seconds on a wet road. Even a minimal gap to allow for reaction and swerving time should be at least five or six seconds at 120km/h. Anything less than that, and you will either hit what’s in your way or be forced into swerving so suddenly that not even the stability control electronics can control the resulting skid.
Surviving wet roads requires, more than anything, respect for what you’re up against. With traction and visibility reduced, it only takes a minor error to have major consequences.
