Numerous accidents have been reported due to hydroplaning this last week; they tend to happen when there have been very heavy rainfall or flooding. When you have heavy rain, the water will amass on the road surface before it is drained to the sides. This increases the risk for hydroplaning; when cars hydroplanes and lose control, the risk for accidents are high, and they can be quite severe if the speed is high. The risk will increase if the tires are worn out to have very limited tread patterns and tread depth.
It is mainly all-season tires or all-weather tires that will face heavy rain conditions, as rain is more limited during the winter. It is important to know if your tires are good at preventing hydroplaning or not. There have been many innovations that have led to great improvements for tires to prevent hydroplaning; some recent inventions have also been made by some of the tire manufacturers that further reduce the risk of experiencing it. This adds another degree of safety, as accidents due to hydroplaning are frequent when it rains the all-season.
The best way to avoid hydroplaning is to have good quality tires that prevent hydroplaning with improved tread patterns and polished grooves to speed up the water flow away from the contact area. As long as the tread remains in contact with the road surface, you can still control your vehicle. If you lose contact, you lose control and will glide on top of the water layer. This lack of control causes accidents when cars lose control and hit the barriers or spin off the road.
Speed has a negative impact on hydroplaning, as the higher the speed, the less time the tire has to remove the water from the surface area. This is why it is always recommended to lower the speed during very heavy rain. This is also how you escape hydroplaning that when the control is lost, the speed will diminish automatically, and you will regain contact again. If you haven’t completely lost control over the vehicle, the tires will regain contact, and the control is re-established. So even if it is scary, even if there is no accident, it is often a very short loss of control.
For winter tires, they are instead optimized to prevent slushplaning, which is the same except that you have wet snow. The wet snow requires wider channels in the tread to push the slush to the sides to prevent that the tires start to plane on the slush layer between the tire and the road surface. There are winter tires that are better than others at preventing this. Slush is caused both by melting snow and when it rains and you still have snow on the ground. Slush is even difficult to walk or bicycle in, so for cars, it is a quite tricky condition that should warrant cautiousness and reduce your speed accordingly.
For more information regarding tires with good hydroplaning prevention qualities, visit: https://www.nokiantires.com/