How To Stop Your Vehicle From Hydroplaning

If you’ve ever went pale and white-knuckled as you suddenly felt your vehicle lift off the pavement and become amphibious for a few moments during a downpour, you’ve just experienced the phenomenon known as hydroplaning.  If it was only for a second or two you may have been able to keep control of your vehicle by just continuing to steer straight and staying alert.  However, Tennessee’s frequent and violent flash flood conditions which cause deep puddles and sometimes full-blown rivers to develop across many of our roads create the perfect conditions for severe hydroplaning to occur.  These stressful driving conditions – paired with lack of know-how of to regain control of the vehicle – can lead to serious and fatal wrecks.  In fact, 75% of weather-related crashes involve wet pavement and 47% of those involve active rainfall.   Drivers often act erratically or over-correct in an attempt to stop the vehicle from hydroplaning, which will most definitely causes continued loss of control of the vehicle and may result in a wreck.

There are a few things you can do to tilt the percentages in your favor that you (and the drivers around you) will make it out unscathed when you hydroplane.  Perhaps even more importantly, there are things you can do to help prevent hydroplaning all together.

Hydroplaning occurs when a layer of water builds up between your vehicle’s tires and the road’s surface causing a loss of traction and possible loss of control.  To drivers it feels like your car is ice-skating on the road.  While hydroplaning, there is little to no contact with the road.   The tread on your tires greatly effects the possibility that you may hydroplane.  Good tread will help water (an inch or two deep) to be whisked away from the path of the vehicle so that the vehicle can steer, stop, and accelerate appropriately.

The first step to regaining control of a hydroplane is identifying its characteristics: 

• You should see tire tracks behind you (in the mirror) if your vehicle is cutting through the water the way it should.  If you don’t, your vehicle is most likely on top of the water.
• You may feel a slight fishtailing, skidding, or sideward vehicle movement.
• You may feel a lot of “wiggle” in the steering wheel indicating that the steering is “soft” or “loose”(because your vehicle is actually floating and not gripping the roadway).
• You may see a slight, quick increase in the RPM’s as your wheels spin quickly on the top of the water.

When you realize your hydroplaning perform these steps simultaneously: 

• When you first start to skid, fishtail, or experience any of the above characteristics, don’t panic.

Most hydroplaning related skids only last for a split-second before you are able to regain control so remain calm and continue to steer in the direction you want to go without over-correcting.  This technique is known as “steering into the skid.”  Additionally, you may need to re-correct your vehicle’s course with some light counter-steering as you’re regaining traction.

• Ease your foot off the gas.  If you’re driving a manual transmission car, disengage the clutch as well.
• If you were breaking when you entered the skid, ease up on the breaks.  If you were coasting or accelerating apply slight/low pressure to the breaks.  Breaking abruptly could cause you to fishtail and spin out more.

How to prevent hydroplaning: 

• Have your tires checked every six months.  There are a variety of good things that driving on well-maintained tires does for your vehicle, but your ability to avert a dangerous a situation is probably one of the most important.
• Slow down!!! In order to have better control over potential hazards you have to see them coming.  You cannot see large puddles of standing water on the roadway going 60-80 miles per hour especially in the rain with windshield wipers flying.  Going below the speed limit during rain fall may add a few minutes to your commute but it could also save your life.
• In the event of rainfall of any type, increase your following distance as well as the amount of distance between you and drivers you’re passing.
• Don’t use cruise control.  What would happen is that your speed would drop as you ride on top of the water.  In cruise control your vehicle would try to self-correct and increase your speed to the set mph.  You definitely do not want to ever increase speed in a hazardous situation.
• Stay clear of the shoulders where rain tends to collect into puddles.

Wet roadway conditions are the master and your car is the servant.  Take back control and defuse potentially dangerous situations for you, your passengers, and other drivers on the road by being ready, alert, and careful.

Even if you are being careful on the roads, remember that other people aren’t always as safe.  If you or a loved one has been seriously injured due to someone else’s negligence on the roadway, we can help.  The compassionate and talented team at Rocky McElhaney Law Firm is here to answer your questions and talk to you for free about your car wreck case.  Having to prove your injuries to pocket-lining insurance companies when your wreck was someone else’s fault, just adds insult to injury.  We know your adjuster’s next move.   We have the negotiation know-how and the courtroom experience to fight for what you deserve for what you’ve gone through.  Don’t settle for less.  (615) 425-2500.