Quote:
Originally Posted by Noah930
I love driving in the rain--during the day. Night, not so much due to poor visibility. But during the day, it's fun to suddenly have to worry about the limits of adhesion, even at semi-legal road speeds. How fast can you go before you start to aquaplane? How much grip really is in that corner? Suddenly, even a boring daily driver with 140 HP can be a challenge to hustle (traffic permitting).
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NASA and the tire manufacturers did a lots of tests back in the 70s. The aviation industry wanted to know at what speed an aircraft tire would get grip for brakes when landing. The basic formula to determine hydroplane or aquaplane speed is simple.
Just take the square root of your tire pressure, and multiply by 10. The easy example is 36 PSI has a square root of 6, then times 10 = 60. That pretty much works on all tires and is one reason the 18 wheel semis running 90 PSI will blast past a careful car driver in heavy rain.
Bottom line, most all cars on the road WILL hydroplane at about 60 MPH even if it is a 6,000 pound SUV or a 2,000 pound sports car. When I am on the road and it is raining enough to have standing water on the road, I do not exceed 60 MPH ever. On a recent trip to Enid on I-35 I was poking along at 60 in the right lane in hard rain. A Ford Excursion went blasting past at the speed limit of 75. About 5 miles ahead we came upon the scene of the accident. He had slid right off the road, and rolled. There were already a dozen cars there so we did not stop. No doubt they all blamed the rain, but it was 100% stupid driver driving too fast for conditions.