Most people don’t particularly like driving in the rain and this can increase stress and anxiety. When it rains, we all need to take more care to handle the bad road conditions.
An average of 24% of crashes happen in the rain, according to the RSA. Two types of drivers can cause these crashes – excessively timid drivers and reckless drivers.
To keep yourself, your passengers, and other road users safe when driving in wet weather, check out our Rainy Driving Tips below.
Rainy Driving Tips
Smart Motorist in the US advise that the most critical safety tip for driving in wet weather is to make sure you can see and be seen, as in stormy conditions, it is more difficult to see other vehicles, road signs and the road itself. Here are some tips for staying safe:
- Slow down! – it takes longer to stop or adjust in wet weather.
- Maintain a safe distance from the car in front of you. This is normally three seconds behind, but in wet weather, you should increase this to a gap of 6 seconds between your car and the car in front of you (to calculate this, start counting when the car in front passes a certain landmark and keep counting until you pass that same landmark).
- Drive in the tracks of the car ahead of you but don’t follow too closely.
- Keep your distance behind large vehicles (e.g lorries or buses). The spray created by their large tires will reduce your vision. Take care when passing them as well; if you must pass, do so quickly and safely.
- Be more alert when driving in wet or slippery conditions. Avoid using your brakes; if possible, take your foot off the accelerator to slow down.
- Turn your headlights on, even in a light rain, Not only do they help you see the road, but they’ll help other drivers see you.
- Never drive beyond the limits of visibility. At night, rainy roads become especially treacherous. In rainy conditions pedestrians, livestock, and wildlife are extremely hard to spot and even harder to avoid.
- Never drive through moving water if you can’t see the ground through it.
- If possible, stay off the road during heavy rain.
If you have any other tips for driving in wet weather make sure to leave a comment on this post!
Brought to you by AXA Car Insurance Ireland.
Hi
I have blogged about this a few times. Getting students to pick a point on the side of the road and count to 6 seconds in my view is dangerous. You should keep your eyes on the vehicle in front of you. I have adopted the approach of telling my students on their driving lessons to keep a distance that allows you to see the car in front but so you cannot read the number plate digits. This keeps their eyes on the vehicle in front and maintains a gap of 4 to 8 seconds. try it for yourselves. it works.
Hi,
I don’t think anyone likes driving in the rain, with the poor visibility and increased chance of crashing. Stopping does take longer when it’s wet, and I don’t think a lot of people pay a lot of attention to this- you should drive slower when it’s wet.
Mark @ Insure Daily
When driving in the rain I am usually mostly concerned with pedestrians. When it rains people want to get out of it as soon as possible and they tend to dart across the road without checking if there are any cars. As it also takes longer for cars to slow down you need to be extra careful and just drive that little bit slower when it is raining heavier.
Increase your stopping distance if you are driving in rainy season. This is to make sure that if the vehicle in front of you comes to a sudden stoppage then you should have a sufficient space to brake to a stop without skidding. Avoid using the high beam headlights and use low beam headlights in the wet conditions.