So, that little slope probably saved my life once.
I was trucking up 44 at a fairly moderate pace (I'm not a big speeder) around a curve when there was suddenly a car in my lane, so I jerked the wheel to the right lane ... where there was another car, I twitch back to the other lane and begin, well, hydroplaning or whatever it is when you have just a touch of rain to bring up the oil from the road. Brakes were not effective and I was headed right for the highway divider at somewhere between forty to fifty miles per hour, at a forty-five degree angle. In this flimsy little car, that corner impact is going to hit me pretty hard.
That's when I looked at the little slope at the base of the highway dividers and reasoned that if I could get my car parallel to the divider, the impact would be taken on the left wheels and the left side of the suspension, areas designed to bear some weight from that particular direction already. I managed to get the car aligned by tweaking the wheel direction, hit, slid for about ten or fifteen feet. I was so nearly perfect to parallel that I only lost the rubber covering to about an inch of bumper. Ended up replacing the tires a few weeks later just out of an abundance of caution, but otherwise fine.
(It turned out that there was a big wreck up around the curve and various drivers had decided to just sort of stop where they were, hence my surprise obstacles)
You weren't hydroplaning. Hydroplaning is when there's so much water your tires can't funnel that water out and you're driving on the surface of the water. You "just" lost traction. And yes the first rains of the season that bring up all the c*ap from the road are notorious for being slippery.
In situations like that you can try to regain traction by making sure the wheels are pointing at the same direction you are traveling, not being on the brakes, etc. Practice on snow or ice in a safe environment. I'm not that great at this myself but I have recovered traction in a handful of real life snow/ice scenarios... Go-karting can also develop some skill/feel for this. You can also take lessons...
In my part of Europe (Slovenia) they now make you take a “safety driving” course within 2 years of getting your license. Skid plates, hydroplaning, all the fun stuff.
My sister got to do it. I missed the fun by a few years and instead practiced with lots of late night drifting fun on fresh snow (don’t tell mom :P)
Same in Austria. It is so helpful to learn how to handle a (your) car in extreme situations, before having to encounter these in the wild.
I loved the skid plates — for those who don't know: this is basically a "moving floor" that yerks your rear wheels randomly left or right when you drive over it. This happens right before a wet section of track and depending on the speed you have while going over it recovering can be quite a challenge.
My car did not have ABS, so I had a lot of fun doing this.
> for those who don't know: this is basically a "moving floor"
Thank you for this explanation! There is a completely different kind of device called a "skid plate" in the context of 4x4 off-road driving, so I was imagining some gnarly things must be happening in this "safety driving" course!
At my U. S. high school back in the early 80s, we'd take our cars out in the parking lot after a fresh Indiana snow and do "doughnuts" (whip your car around in tight circles while on the gas). We did it after school, after the parking lot had mostly cleared out (and it's rural America, the parking lot was way bigger than needed). The principal/head master/whatever-you-call-it-in-your-country stated that he did not care, as it gave kids a safe environment to learn. And in Indiana, you better learn to drive on snow.
That school principal was cool in a lot of ways like that. He'd never keep his job these days.
Hydroplaning below 80 km/h ~49 mp/h is rare and the risk of the wheels loosing contact to the ground increases with speed. So not sure if this was really hydroplaning.
As a tip for others: If you ever encounter hydroplaning make sure not to keep your steering wheel straight (or at least: know why you are doing what you are doing) and step off the gas pedal.
In hydroplaning your wheels don't have contact with the road surface, so turning the wheel won't do shit. But as you loose momentum your wheels will regain contact appruptly again at some point. At that point it really matters how your front wheels are oriented when you do so.
If your front wheels point hard left and there is a dry part of the street you will be yerked directly into oncoming traffic for example.
There is an important distinction to understand between a legal maximum speed and safe speed. The legal maximum may be lower or higher than the safe speed. In bad weather, such as icy conditions, heavy rain, fog, the safe speed may be far lower than legal maximum. Safe speed will also depend on your skill, car equipment and maintenance, and particulars of the road itself. A road with a 60mph legal limit may feel absolutely fine at 65mph on a quiet summer afternoon in a newly serviced BMW M3 driven by a 25 year old rally champion, yet be genuinely very dangerous at 55mph in freezing fog at 3am on a January morning in a car with bald tyres driven by my grandfather.
You should not drive at an unsafe speed, even though many drivers will do so especially when it's beneath legal limits. If you're losing steering authority, you either are going too fast, or you're somewhere you shouldn't be driving at all. The car is intended to operate with your steering wheel controlling where it goes, when that's not working you've stepped outside the intended bounds of operation.
Oh I read it. I just don't think you're telling the whole story. Speed is almost always a factor in crashes and near misses like this. The fact that stopped traffic caught you that much by surprise doesn't seem like a good sign.
Like I said, glad you're OK. Glad the barrier saved your life / reduced the damage. These barriers are a last resort. Terrifying to read just how many stories there are in this thread of people relying on them.
Better than barriers I would think is more driver training, higher standards for licensure, and more alternatives to driving. Safest way to travel is not in a personal car operated by an amateur.
I was trucking up 44 at a fairly moderate pace (I'm not a big speeder) around a curve when there was suddenly a car in my lane, so I jerked the wheel to the right lane ... where there was another car, I twitch back to the other lane and begin, well, hydroplaning or whatever it is when you have just a touch of rain to bring up the oil from the road. Brakes were not effective and I was headed right for the highway divider at somewhere between forty to fifty miles per hour, at a forty-five degree angle. In this flimsy little car, that corner impact is going to hit me pretty hard.
That's when I looked at the little slope at the base of the highway dividers and reasoned that if I could get my car parallel to the divider, the impact would be taken on the left wheels and the left side of the suspension, areas designed to bear some weight from that particular direction already. I managed to get the car aligned by tweaking the wheel direction, hit, slid for about ten or fifteen feet. I was so nearly perfect to parallel that I only lost the rubber covering to about an inch of bumper. Ended up replacing the tires a few weeks later just out of an abundance of caution, but otherwise fine.
(It turned out that there was a big wreck up around the curve and various drivers had decided to just sort of stop where they were, hence my surprise obstacles)