Driving in Adverse Weather Conditions
Adverse weather conditions - Heavy rain
Heavy rain is probably the most common adverse weather condition in the U.K
Reaction: A sudden downpour of heavy rain may at first be a problem. You will experience a sudden reduction in visibility and a strong desire to increase the braking distance between your own car and the one in front.
Action: As soon as you realise that it is raining you should turn on the windscreen wipers and your driving lights. As the intensity of the weather increases then you should increase the speed of your windscreen wipers to help maintain visibility.
Internal Visibility: The screens on the inside of your vehicle can easily mist up. Turn on the window demister (even if it does only do the rear window) and turn on the fan. The flow of the air should be set towards the windscreen. If the screens do start to mist up then increase the fan speed and feed in a little bit of heat. This will work against misting screens.
Speed: Reduce your speed as necessary. I would not think it safe to carry on driving at a normal road speed in heavy rain.
Tyre technology has improved over the years but there is only a certain amount of water that even the best tread patterns can remove. Once this limit is reached the ability of the tyre to grip the road is reduced immediately. Reducing your speed will help your tyres to cope with the amount of water underneath them.
If your speed is too high in the rain then aquaplaning can occur. Aquaplaning occurs when a tyre is lifted slightly off the surface of the road because there is too much water underneath it. You have no grip what-so-ever and steering has no effect. The only remedy is to slow down to enable the tyres to re-establish contact with the road.
Observation: Observations are more difficult in adverse weather conditions so it is wise to slow down as much as is necessary.
I would recommend that you leave a bigger gap behind a large vehicle than a small one. The reason is the amount of spray that can be thrown into the air by multiple tyres on a large vehicle. If you have to pass through the spray of a larger vehicle, for example overtaking a lorry on a motorway, then you should set yur windscreen wipers to a faster speed before you drive into the spray.
Safe Distance: If you can still see the vehicle in front you must remember that your safe separation distance is now doubled from two seconds to four seconds. If you cannot see the vehicle ahead then please expect to come across a stationary vehicle. This is more likely than you may think given that inexperienced drives may decide to stay exactly where they are until the weather conditions change.
Standing Water: Puddles to you and I. Do not splash pedestrians. It is inconsiderate. It can be impossible to determine the depth of standing water until it is too late. Drive through slowly in a low gear. If the wash that your car causes is likely to be inconvenient for others then drive even slower.
Remember: You must be able to stop in the distance that you can see to be safe.
Heavy rain can be devastating. Here in the U.K flash floods occur and you do not want to be caught in one of those. The sites below contain information that may be of interest to some of you.
