Go slow on wet roads
H. Kishie Singh

MONSOON showers bring pretty flowers and fender benders.

When you are reading this I hope it’s pouring. The monsoon have never been so welcome. It also means that you will be driving on the wettest roads in the world. Driving on wet roads requires some special skills.

One of the most dangerous practices and, consequently, horrifying sights is to see drivers maintaining their normal dry-road speeds on wet roads. This is really begging for problems. Even when roads are fog-bound, drivers do not reduce speed.

First, the braking distance increases on a wet road. Keep this in mind and maintain a safe distance, much more than had the road been dry. Since we drive on dry roads for most of the year, we take braking for granted. But it’s vastly different on a wet road.

Second and third, your steering is affected by a wet road as is your road holding.

These most important requirements for safe driving are adversely affected.

Learn to adapt your speed to the existing road conditions. A good example would be driving on Madhya Marg, where the speed limit is 65 kmph. In my opinion this speed is too high. May be 20 years ago, this speed was practical but not today.

So may be while coming home at midnight you could drive at 65 kmph, but no way can you drive at this speed at mid-day. If you do, it would be a very dangerous move.

Adapt your speed to the prevailing road conditions.

About 40-45 kmph is a good speed on Madhya Marg during office hours. Hold this speed, drive in the centre lane, leaving the right- hand lane, the overtake lane, free. Madhya Marg is a three-lane road.

This way you won’t need to change gears, use your clutch, blow your horn and brake hard to go around the roundabout. Braking from 65 kmph to negotiate a roundabout requires severe braking. Not so from 40-45 kmph.

It’s monsoon time. I just changed the wiper blades on my Gypsy. They were six months old and looked good. Their appearance can be misleading. If the rubber has hardened, the wipers won’t do their job. In addition, they will scratch the windscreen glass. Good visibility is essential at all times.

Good tyres are the greatest safety assets to a car. It’s your only contact with mother earth. That is on dry tarmac. On water-soaked roads, there will be a thin film of water separating the tyres from the road. Your tyres have to be in a good condition.

If they are worn to 0.16 mm tread depth, the tyres will not provide any wet weather traction. It will mean longer stopping distances and less steering control — both very dangerous situations.

The car could also aquaplane. This means that the car, due to excessive speed and worn-out tyres, will be riding on a film of water not the tarmac! This may result in zero steering control, zero braking ability!

Your tyre pattern has zig-zag cuts across it. These are called sipes. As the tyre comes into contact with the water, it fills the sipes, which channel the water out, making sure the tyre stays in contact with the tarmac. A worn-out tyre cannot do this, hence the aquaplaning effect.

Choose your tyres with care. If you drive an expensive and fast car, the price of tyres should not be a consideration. Buy the best. In addition to a new breed of tyres that are unidirectional, you have tyres these days that are specially designed for wet roads. If they work well on wet roads, for sure they will be good on dry roads.

Another point to keep in mind. When your car is stationary, only a certain amount of tyre is in contact with the road. This is referred to as the footprint. As you drive off, and pick up speed, the centrifugal force tends to pull the tyre outward. This in effect "thins out" the tyre. The footprint area is reduced, less of the tyre touches the road. Slow down and the footprint area will be larger i.e. better road grip.

Drive slowly, brake gently and in case the visibility is low, put on headlights on low beam.

Happy motoring!