AX and track days well spent. Saved me
 

It rained a few days ago. I'm in my Tacoma. Going speed limit on highway. Light traffic. Four lanes. Im in #2 (second from right). I see a white Tacoma entering the freeway. She is hauling ass. I see her rear end wiggle and she loses control. Here she comes. She does a wide fishtail and ends up mostly in my lane facing me. Her rear is in #1 lane a bit. I get on the brakes and feel it, I'm gonna lose it. My rear starts to break free and I aim at her. I don't know how I did it, but I let go of the pedal. I drift right!!! Better. Way better. She is still moving towards #3 lane which is where I'm going. I don't know what happened but I pass right of her as she is closing the distance. I see her screaming as i pass. I go by her with inches to spare. I keep driving by. I don't even look back. I didn't want to see a crash. I look down and I'm going 25 mph. My knees are shaking. Just chattering up and down. I can see them jumping. I pull over and sat there. Cars are going by honking and thumbs upping me. If I hit her it would have been a mess. Airbags etc. two lost tacomas. It happened so fast.


Sent via Jedi mind trick.

Congrats, glad it worked out for you.

Once while driving through San Jose on 101 in the rain, in my VW Scirocco, someone in front of me just started spinning. Within seconds, everyone was doing the same, hitting each other all over the place. Must have been at least 10 cars. It wasn't too serious, just a bunch of fender benders. I just let up on the gas, stayed off the brake, and slalomed through the whole mess without touching anyone. I think I used a Jedi mind trick to make it through the moving slalom course.

I have no idea how accurate it is, but I recently read your speed to prevent hydroplaning is the square root of your tire pressure times ten. That should be about sixty mph for my wife's car and seventy for my truck, although I never travel that fast during heavy rain and wet conditions. I've never hydroplaned out of control luckily enough. I do always slow down during fairly heavy rainy conditions, but probably been lucky lots of times. I went to a driver class years ago, and only learned one thing I'd never consciously though of. That was to seek out areas with the largest range of space when you are driving. Since then I've taken that to heart - at least when it's possible.

I remember reading that here in PPOT a couple weeks ago. But that seems overly simplistic. In that equation, tire tread depth makes no difference? (Let alone tread pattern?)

Either way, glad Vash made out OK. In situations like those, I'm glad it takes my brain so long to figure out what's going on. I just do stuff with my hands and feet to get out of trouble, and then only later realize how close to disaster I came.

Something I learned a long time ago and have had occasion to put into practice.

When you see poo like that start to happen don't try to get away from it, drive at it because by the time you get there it's gone.

Hmm, the exceptions to that rule would be extraordinarily painful.

The formula is correct. Problem is, you can run off the road while trying to figure it out in your head while driving.

A quick and dirty approximation is: 2 x your tire pressure less about 10%
That will get you very close and is a little conservative (yields slightly lower speed).

Important: This is the speed at which your tire completely comes off the pavement. At speeds approaching the target value, your tire has a less than full contact. It gradually lifts off. So, your traction/contact starts to go sooner.

Films from the Ohio DOT showed front wheels of test cars coming to a complete stop while at highway speeds during long stretches of hydroplaning. You might not even notice it until you try to turn.


Good point. The equation assumes that the tread of the tire is flooded. What contributes to flooding?
- Worn or thinner tread
- Wider tires
- Deeper water on the roadway
- A tread pattern that doesn't disperse water as well
- A smooth roadway (those rain grooves in the roadway, in effect, give your tires deeper tread).

Once, on a snowy day driving home from the airport on I-90 through Spokane, two cars spun out in front of me. Nobody was going fast, and traffic was really light -- it was one of those super-slick-icy days, so we were maybe doing 15 or 20, just enough to declare "bare steerageway." Anyway, the first car started to fishtail, lost it, and just started spinning around and around, sliding slowly down the road. The second car saw that, responded badly, and somehow ended up the same. The one was in the right lane (of 3), the second in the left lane (of 3). I was roughly in the middle lane, and just did what I could to keep steady. I happened to be at just the right speed to get through between them while they were both pointed the right direction. The guy behind me was not -- the guy on the left was spinning slowly broadside when he came past, so there were then 3 cars slowly spinning to a stop. I guess I was the last one to get through that chunk of road for a few hours.

Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good, right? :)

Will someone think of the Tacomas!

I wonder how many people in Tacoma drive Tacomas? Or in Santa Fe drive a Santa Fe?

I can tell you that no one in Malibu drives a Chevy Malibu. :)