Totally agree with teaching learners to actually control the car in varying conditions/road surfaces/road types.
There is a tendency to teach to pass the test and comments like....you pass THEN learn to drive.
Modern cars with driver aids aimed at safety also infer that the car makes your driving safer so you can take liberties plays a part too.
Too many jump into a car and off they go without fully reading the road/weather/traffic/ effect on others.
Now, to the skidding in the wet.
Earlier this month I was at a presentation by a senior airline captain about flying. Fascinating stuff. One section was weather related considerations.
So...water on the ground.
There is a limit of 5mm depth of surface water to allow taking off and landing ( unless a need to land prevents this). He showed a video of a cargo plane aquaplaning and going off the end of a runway . Scary.
For aquaplaning tyres themselves are not the main control, tread has little effect unless very low creating slick tyre conditions. Brand new full tread tyres will still aquaplane.
The critical factor is tyre pressure. The formula to calculate the upper speed limit is
Critical speed = 9x (1/6 tyre pressure)
Thus....if tyre pressure is 24psi critical speed is 36mph.
tyre pressure of 36psi gives 54mph.
Quite a revealing result!
Remember, too, that a plane on a runway travels in straight lines at significant speeds so turning at speed becomes ultra critical.
Would ABS help? Probably yes as it reduces momentarily wheel locking to allow steering back.
