Important Safety Tip Surfaces! For Real!!!

Carrie dug this up. It sounds pretty scary, doesn't it?

If it's true.

Here is the story, then we'll see if it's true.


Driving in the Rain

NEVER KNEW THIS BEFORE...

I wonder how many people know about this?

A 36 year old female had an accident several weeks ago and totaled her car. A resident of Kilgore, Texas, she was traveling between Gladewater & Kilgore. It was raining, though not excessively, when her car suddenly began to hydroplane and literally flew through the air. She was not seriously injured but very stunned at the sudden occurrence!

When she explained to the highway patrolman what had happened, he told her something that every driver should know - NEVER DRIVE IN THE RAIN WITH YOU R CRUISE CONTROL ON. She had thought she was being cautious by setting the cruise control and maintaining a safe consistent speed in the rain. But the highway patrolman told her that if the cruise control is on and your car begins to hydroplane -- when your tires lose contact with the pavement, your car will accelerate to a higher rate of speed and you take off like an airplane. She told the patrolman that was exactly what had occurred.

The patrolman said this warning should be listed, on the driver's seat sun-visor - NEVER USE THE CRUISE CONTROL WHEN THE PAVEMENT IS WET OR ICY, along with the airbag warning. We tell our teenagers to set the cruise control and drive a safe speed - but we don't tell them to use the cruise control only when the pavement is dry. The only person the accident victim found, who knew this (besides the patrolman), was a man who had had a similar accident, totaled his car and sustained severe injuries.

If you tell this to 15 people and only one of them doesn't know about this, then it was all worth it. You might have saved a life.


Okay, I'm back. I checked this story out with the experts at Snopes.

YES IT IS TRUE!!!

Here is what Snopes has to say about it.


Claim: Using cruise control on wet roads or during heavy rain can cause you to lose control of your vehicle.

Status: True.

Origins: We began seeing this cautionary tale turn up in inboxes in November 2002. Although these accounts are probably "real" in the sense that they indeed reflect someone's attempt to describe an automotive mishap that actually happened to him, the explanation about a hydroplaning car's suddenly accelerating and "taking off like a rocket" due to the use of cruise control is a garbled one probably reflecting the author's misunderstanding of what had occurred. Nonetheless, the warning inherent to the tale — don't engage your vehicle's cruise control on slippery or wet roads — is well worth heeding. Snow, ice, slush, or even rain can cause wheel-spin and loss of control, situations to which drivers must react quickly. Although cruise control can generally be cut off by the driver's simply tapping the brake pedal, the extra reaction time required for a motorist relying upon cruise control to recognize the danger of the situation when his wheels begins to spin or slide on a slippery surface, bring his foot up off the floor to the brake pedal, and disengage the cruise control can be crucial (especially for drivers lured into a hazardous level of inattentiveness on long, flat stretches of road).

So there you have it. Carrie, once again, is right. Heed her words. Tremble in her mighty presence. Bow before her greatness.

But don't slap her butt. She'll hurt you!