Hi all, just read an article on the internet where a lady totalled her car on the motorway in wet conditions. When interviewed by the police she said she was travelling at a steady speed with cruise control on. The police advise her that this was a bad practice as it can cause the car to aquaplane. Has anyone heard of this before and why would this happen !!!!

It does seem pretty obvious that the driver is not in full control of the vehicle for the conditions.

ie,

not ready ready to lift off the throttle.

You might well not be braking as you see water across the road,

but often you will lift off the throttle and get your speed down and you hold the steering wheel firmer and react as required as to how the car goes through or over the water.

(you may accelerate through the water, but often as you are first in Aqua planing situations you have no idea what to do, even less if you are in Cruise Control and not even thinking about the Rain, Water and your speed.)

Being fully in control being very important possibly if the car is pulling/sliding to the left or right.

She was not in control of the car or of any common sense.

Maybe thought the Electrics, TC etc does it all for you.

george

Hi all, just read an article on the internet where a lady totalled her car on the motorway in wet conditions. When interviewed by the police she said she was travelling at a steady speed with cruise control on. The police advise her that this was a bad practice as it can cause the car to aquaplane. Has anyone heard of this before and why would this happen !!!!

Don't see how cc can specifically cause the car to aquaplane where it wouldn't otherwise do so.

If cc was that dangerous they wouldn't put it on cars, or would at least provide warnings to protect themselves like "do not use cc in wet conditions - danger of death"

I would have thought the driver aid would have kicked in and cut the cc.

To be fair I've not used it in the wet, only time I use it is in speed trap areas like in road works.

IIRC it states in the manual, not to use cruise control in wet or adverse weather.

It doesn't explain why.

Fin

I would have thought the driver aid would have kicked in and cut the cc.

It does exactly this ^^^

The driver still needs to be paying attention and driving to the conditions.

The Cruise Control may well be switched off as it hits the water or has no traction with the road surface and is in effect Water Sking,

but by then you are on the water. Much the same as hitting Ice, Diesel etc on the road surface.

Is the explanation not pretty clear.

'Driver not driving to the prevailing road or weather conditions'.

No matter how good, Traction Control, ESP or any other Electronic control is,

until it can read a Wheel Spinning or similar it can not act.

(Maybe Radar looking ahrad can see a puddle or covering of water that is about to be between the Asphalt and the rubber.)

A driver often has no time to act when they see a puddle or water across a road.

Luck of the draw very often, and the car with Narrow Treaded tyres goes straight across and has no Aquaplaning',

while to the outside or inside of you in the other lane, maybe overtaking or coming towards you can be the big fancy car that is going totally out of control.

The Cars with electrics in or partially controlling the car hitting the water and getting no fore warning or vision and the car is speeding along at what ever pace the CC was set at may have a driver not fully in control of the steering wheel..

george

thanks for the replies there quiet interesting, I also herd that one car manufacturer has an arrangment where the c/c canels when the windscreen sensor detects rain.

I would have thought if the cruise was set at a safe speed in accordance with the weather conditions at any given moment of the journey its no different than not having it set. Anybody who sets cruise at say 70mph when its lashing it down is a complete idiot so thats probably why it suggested you dont use it they do this with everthing in life to cover the brainless.