"RoseGarden" - - - - - - - from - nscave

   With all the heavy rains we've had around the country, along with severe flooding at times, I am amazed so many people haven't a clue of how to safely drive through water.

   You see it all the time. Drivers going at high speed trying to get through a large area of water covered road. High speed in this case is anything more than a walking pace.

  And many of said drivers end up stalled in the middle of the water covered area. Right where they deserve as far as I am concerned. When you see a vehicle heading into water with the splash flying everywhere that driver is asking for problems.

Lets look at why this is so.

First of all you don't know what's under that water. The road could be washed out, you may be driving into a large hole. Manhole covers may have been misplaced, or other debris that you can't see lurking under the water.

It takes three things to keep an engine running. Ignition, fuel and air. 

Driving fast through water can get the engine and ignition parts wet. Water conducts electricity. If the ignition gets wet, the engine will misfire and possibly quit. If the fan is running you can be quite sure everything is going to be more than wet.

If water gets into the air cleaner & intake, the engine is also going to quit pretty quickly. Cars today are made pretty good and designed to run well in the rain, but not to go high speed through large bodies of water. That's what boats are for.

Consequently, often when you see the shots on TV, you often see the vehicles flying through the water, and then some stopped in the deepest part. There is no advantage of driving through deep water at high speed. The risks are increased immensely.

If you must drive through a large quantity of water, the way to do it is drive less than a walking pace. Don't make the water 'wave' anymore than necessary. Be prepared for unknown obstructions. And if you do make it successfully through, remember your brakes will be wet. Feather them slightly to dry them out and be prepared for longer stopping distances for the next couple of stops. (Feather means apply the brakes slightly while driving, but not enough to slow the vehicle.)

This work by NSCAVE is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License