When should you NOT use cruise control?
Many safe drivers use the cruise control function of our car to maintain a safe speed on the highway. But a viral email that made its way into my inbox points out the possible danger of using cruise control in the rain.
According to the email:
If the cruise control is on when your car begins to hydro-plane due to rain or ice and your tires lose contact with the pavement, your car will accelerate to a igher rate of speed making you take off like an airplane.
Always the skeptic of viral emails typed in all caps, I checked out the validity on Snopes.com and turns out it’s true. They quote the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia’s web page of tips about driving on wet roads:
The only way to stop this wheel-spin and maintain control is to immediately reduce power. However, an activated cruise control system will continue to apply power, keeping the wheels spinning. By the time you disengage the cruise control, you may have lost control.
The only real difference I see in the two descriptions is tone. The first is trying to impress upon the reader the severity of the consequences, whereas the latter is written by a starched-shirt laywer who probably never drives in the rain at all. Somewhere between is the truth, which is driving in the rain or snow with cruise control on reduces your control of the vehicle and increases the chance of a terrible accident, so don’t do it.
Safe driving!
