[AlanHo]

Email info received today - I don't know whether to believe it or not.......

GOOD VISION IN A DOWNPOUR

How to achieve good vision while driving during a heavy downpour.

We are not sure why it is so effective; just try this method when it rains heavily.
Most motorists would turn on HIGH or FASTEST SPEED of the wipers during heavy downpour, yet the visibility in front of the windshield is still bad......

In the event you face such a situation, just try your polaroid SUN GLASSES (any model will do), and miracle! All of a sudden, your visibility in front of your windshield is perfectly clear, as if there is no rain.  Amazing, you still see the drops on the windshield, but not the sheet of rain falling.

You can see where the rain bounces off the road. It works to eliminate the "blindness" from passing semi's spraying you too.


CRUISE CONTROL IN THE RAIN

I wonder how many people know about this:

A 36 year old female had an accident several weeks ago and totalled her car. A resident of Kinburn, Ontario was traveling between Kinburn & Ottawa. It was raining, though not excessively, when her car suddenly began to hydro-plane and literally flew off the road. She was not seriously injured but very stunned at the sudden occurrence!

When she explained to the OPP Officer what had happened, he told her something that every driver should know - NEVER DRIVE IN THE RAIN WITH YOUR CRUISE CONTROL ON . She thought she was being cautious by setting the cruise control and maintaining a safe consistent speed in the rain. But the Officer told her that if the cruise control is on when your car begins to hydro-plane and your tires lose contact with the pavement, your car will try to accelerate to a higher rate of speed making the skid worse. She told the OPP Officer that was exactly what had occurred.

NOTE: Some vehicles will not allow you to set the cruise control when the windshield wipers are on. 



PS

I checked Snopes and they give qualified credence to the cruise control warning - but I could not find any reference to using sun glasses when driving in the rain.

[Shambles]

Mmmmm... food for thought  :-\


I think we'll portalise that 

[eye30]

Email info received today - I don't know whether to believe it or not.......

GOOD VISION IN A DOWNPOUR

 just try your polaroid SUN GLASSES (any model will do), and miracle! All of a sudden, your visibility in front of your windshield is perfectly clear,

It does work.

When I was a youngster and Foster Grants were the rage I use to drive wearing my polaroid sunglasses in the rain and at night.

At night it removes the glare from street lights and headlights of on coming cars.

[AlanHo]

I've been Googling and found this.....which I consider plausible.

What has cruise control got to do with aquaplaning?

Not much, but it’s how most drivers react while the cruise control is on that will almost certainly decide whether a nasty aquaplaning situation turns into anything more than a scare.

Here are some examples you should consider...

 •After drivers engage the cruise control and no longer have contact with the accelerator pedal, they can no longer feel if the wheels are losing traction until it is too late.

 
•When something does go wrong while the cruise control is engaged, most drivers stab the brake pedal to disengage the cruise control. If the car is starting to aquaplane, hitting the brakes could be enough to lock up the wheels completely. Even with the wheels locked-up under brakes and the cruise control disengaged, the car would continue on at speed. ABS-equipped cars could save most drivers in this situation.

 
•As some drivers move their feet well away from the accelerator pedal when the cruise control is engaged, experts suggest that the above scenario is just as likely to be caused by the driver stabbing the accelerator instead of the brake as they tried to disengage the cruise control.

 
•A car with cruise control engaged does not know to slow down before a corner nor does it know when to reapply the power as you leave the corner. A cruise control forces the car to rely totally on its front wheels to steer through a corner when good drivers would normally use a strategic sequence of brakes, accelerator and steering. If the front wheels start aquaplaning in the middle of a corner, the cruise control cannot register the loss of grip unless the car is front-drive. The cruise control would then keep pushing the car straight ahead off the road or across oncoming traffic. Applying the brakes to stop this could make an already dangerous situation worse.

 
•Cruise control can make you inattentive. By the time you wake up to a problem situation and work out what to do, it can be too late.

[Lakes]

I could not say about the dark glass's, why not catch the bus when it's raining & test that out ( much safer )
that would be true with CC & hydo, but also wide tyres will hydro more than narrow tyres & a heavy car will hydo less than a light car, the right tyres help a lot too. was she useing ESC?
Sorry Lester, i just saw you have confirmed about dark glass's, hey do you know how to test if your dark glass's are indeed polarized?

[eye30]

hey do you know how to test if your dark glass's are indeed polarized?

It said it on the sticker.   
 
Not to be confused with reacterlite glasses

[Dazzler]

Thanks Alan (very informative, timely warning)

My eldest brother who lives in New South Wales was a successful racing driver in his younger days and has given me a few driving tips over the years including the Cruise Control one.. I still use it occassionally in very light rain but never if lots of water on the road or raining heavily.

He also told be to watch the front wheels of other cars around me as you can often pick up what they are going to do before they actually do it.. E.G. Sudden turns without using their indicators etc... I have averted a few close shaves using his advice. 

I can't really try/use the sunglasses trick unfortunately, as I get my previous set of glasses tinted when I get a new prescription and I don't think they can make them Polarised that way 

[jabber]

excellent info Alan! thanks for sharing. about to do a drive from Sydney to the Gold Coast tomorrow stopping overnight at Coffs Harbour. polaroid sunnies ready! 

[Lakes]

hey do you know how to test if your dark glass's are indeed polarized?

It said it on the sticker.   
 
Not to be confused with reacterlite glasses

Lester to tell if you have polerized dark glass's there is a cool trick to test two pare. polarized has like dark lines go across ways, you get two pare of known polarized glass's and you line them up face to face now look through them then you turn one pare side on so you have one lense of each pare face to face and you can still look through them you will notice while one is side on the other right way that looking through them its darker then you turn the one thats side on up the right way while still looking through the lense you will notice they get lighter, as the dark lines line up while the are facing the same way, when one turns if blocks off the dark lines make it full dark. try it is very cool to see.

[Dazzler]

hey do you know how to test if your dark glass's are indeed polarized?

It said it on the sticker.   
 
Not to be confused with reacterlite glasses

Lester to tell if you have polerized dark glass's there is a cool trick to test two pare. polarized has like dark lines go across ways, you get two pare of known polarized glass's and you line them up face to face now look through them then you turn one pare side on so you have one lense of each pare face to face and you can still look through them you will notice while one is side on the other right way that looking through them its darker then you turn the one thats side on up the right way while still looking through the lense you will notice they get lighter, as the dark lines line up while the are facing the same way, when one turns if blocks off the dark lines make it full dark. try it is very cool to see.

I've got a headache.. no sure if before or after I read that 

[Ozbrum]

Great info Alan and guys ..... As you go on you live and learn 

[BC]

I could not say about the dark glass's, why not catch the bus when it's raining & test that out ( much safer )
that would be true with CC & hydo, but also wide tyres will hydro more than narrow tyres & a heavy car will hydo less than a light car, the right tyres help a lot too. was she useing ESC?
Sorry Lester, i just saw you have confirmed about dark glass's, hey do you know how to test if your dark glass's are indeed polarized?

I just hold the glasses away from my face and look through them while I rotate them through 360 degrees.  Reflective surfaces (even mildly reflective) appear to darken when the glasses are horizontal (as worn) and lighten when vertical.

[Surferdude]

Polaroid sunglasses can be identified by looking at your back quarter panel glass.
If it looks like rustynutz, one he had replaced as faulty, they're polaroids.

I tried them driving to Brisbane before dawn in the rain today and they certainly seem to work as stated above.

And I didn't use the CC.

[neptune]

I wonder how they will compare against the yellow tinted glasses in the rain

[Krakrak]

This is a hoax, an old email chain letter.

The cruise control will not accelerate when hydroplanning (or aquaplanning), it will actually decelerate.

The only thing a cruise do is try to maintain the same speed. The only way it knows the current speed is by the same sensor as the speedometer, inside the transmission.

When you hit a big puddle of water, the tires lose contact on the road and start spinning faster because of the big reduction in friction, they spin on a thin layer of water.

Your car is losing speed, because the tires aren't pulling it as efficiently. But if you check your speedometer it's indicating a faster speed because you're spinning your wheels faster (just like spinning on ice or snow).

So the cruise control sees it as the car going faster, not slower (remember, it only know the speed reported by the transmission, from the front wheels) and will lower the accelerator input. Since it's reaction time is quite slow, and that the hydroplanning last only a couple of seconds, most of the time nothing will happend.

But if you disengage the cruise or brake while hydroplanning, you could be in serious trouble.

The thing to do when hydroplanning is keep the steering pointed where you're going (you don't want your front wheels pointed sideways when the tires suddenly regain traction) and don't brake/accelerate/deccelerate suddenly.

But I'm not suggesting anyone to use the cruise control in the rain, in fact I encourage everyone to not use it when the road is slippery since you must retain control of your car and in these conditions every millisecond count when you have to react quickly.

Reference: http://www.hoax-slayer.com/cruise-control-warning.html


And for the glasses, I think you're talking about POLARIZED sunglasses, not POLAROID (company which makes instant cameras).

[Dazzler]

thanks for the helpful comments Krakrak 

[Ugly Mongrel]

Great post Krakrak. Your description of aqua planeing and you advice on how to deal with it are welcome and spot on.
It's amazing the rubbish circulating on the Internet that people pick up and run with as being the gospel truth.

[rustynutz]

Yes, thanks Krakrak.....

And for the glasses, I think you're talking about POLARIZED sunglasses, not POLAROID (company which makes instant cameras).

I did a bit of research and found that "Polaroid is the trademark for a type of synthetic plastic sheet which is used to polarize light, made by Polaroid Corporation."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaroid_(polarizer)

Hahahah excellent info AlanHo.

Will try that sun glass/downpour first chance i get!!

[Krakrak]

I did a bit of research and found that "Polaroid is the trademark for a type of synthetic plastic sheet which is used to polarize light, made by Polaroid Corporation."

Hey thanks rustynutz for the correction. I'm always happy to find the facts even if it's me that is in error 

[2i30s]

i wear glasses that have transition lenses in them [lenses darken in the sun] and my head unit looks like its black when my glasses go dark.   they could be polarised. 

[eye30]

i wear glasses that have transition lenses in them [lenses darken in the sun]

My optician told me not to wear this type of glasses when driving.
 The reason being if you enter/leave a sunny/dull bit of road/tunnel/tree lined road the glasses may not react quickly and you may end up in a predicament....

[Dazzler]

I've had Transition lenses a few times but I found they didn't go dark while driving unless the sun was actually shining on them (so no good for glare - only direct sun and I usually avoid that with the sunvisor) so I get my previous pair tinted but don't think they can make them polarised with just a coating?  )