Is this true?

RiCharlie

My wife got this in the email the other day and I wondered if it is true or not..There are two bits of advice..one is easy enough to check out but not so with the other..


GOOD VISION IN A DOWNPOUR

How to achieve good vision while driving during
a heavy downpour.

We are not sure why it is so effective;
just try this method when it
rains heavily. This method was told
by a Police friend who had experienced and
confirmed it. It is useful....even driving
at night.

Most of the motorists would turn on HIGH or
FASTEST SPEED of the wipers during heavy
downpour, yet the visibility in front of
the windshield is still bad......

In the event you face such a
situation, just try your SUN GLASSES (any
model will do), and miracle! All of a
sudden, your visibility in front of
your windshield is perfectly clear,
as if there is no rain.

Make sure you always have a pair of SUN
GLASSES in your car, as you are not only
helping yourself to drive safely with good vision,
but also might save your friend's life
by giving him this idea..

Try it yourself and share it with your
friends! Amazing, you still
see the drops on the
windshield, but not the sheet of
rain falling.

You can see where the rain bounces off the
road. It works to eliminate the
"blindness" from passing semi's
spraying you too.

Or the "kickup" if you are following
a semi or car in the rain. They
ought to teach that little tip in
driver's training. It really
does work..

This warning is a good one! 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 hydro-plane 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 YOUR CRUISE CONTROL ON
She 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 when your car begins to hydro-plane
and your tires lose contact with the pavement,
your car will accelerate to a higher rate
of speed making 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 USETHE 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 a similar accident,
totaled
his car and sustained severe
injuries.

NOTE: Some vehicles (like the Toyota
Sienna Limited XLE) will not allow you to
set the cruise control when the
windshield wipers are on. If you send 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.

shadoquad

I'll have to try the sunglasses one.

The hydroplaning in cc one makes a lot of sense to me. Throttle control is so important in wet conditions.

kenchan

yah, sunglasses works prefectly at night too...

use rain-x. no wipers needed at speed.

nmjaxx9

Interesting, but I doubt the sunglasses theory works, although come next rain fall i might have to try it.

onzedge

Point 1 -- only Ray Bans

Point 2 --

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TreeSemdyZee

The sunglasses setup does actually work, depending on the time of day. Polarized will probably work better than non-polarized, but I have done it quite a few times.

Believe it or not, I actually have used them at night too. My night vision is bad and I'm very sensitive to light due to a buttload of eye surgeries. I haven't done it very often and only if there are a lot of oncoming cars.

Also in agreement with the cruise control info.

daisuke149

its all about situation on this.

if its somehow raining and still quite bright and/or the other cars lights are bright, the water does funky **** with the light and makes visibility harder. Polarized glasses will cut that out so while its slightly darker, overall things are clearer.

Now, it doesnt help if its really dark and raining and your sunglasses are also really dark. Essentially its just like getting rid of glare in a way.

Ive done this before once or twice when it was somehow raining really hard but the sun was shining really bright.

RiCharlie

I used rain x but discovered a much better solution...take some powdered cleaner.. like AJAX and clean the windows with a sponge and this power and of course some water.. scrub the windows good...rinse and then take some rubbing alcohol and put it on a cloth and clean the wipers with this..you will be very surprised at how good this works ..much better and longer than Rain X.. let me know how it works for you

VQStryker

Like someone said already just use rainX

cruise control will cause an accident when you hydroplane becuz when it senses your speed slow down from your set speed, it corrects by speeding up. rest of the picture is obvious.

Zaggeron

I don't know about the cruise control thing. This might be outdated conventional wisdom. Without any driver aids, if the cruise control senses a drop in speed, it increases throttle to compensate. If the slow-down is due to wheel slippage, then it makes the situation worse. But consider if the VDC is on. If the tires slip, power is cut. Does the cruise control then trump the VDC? Probably not. Worst case, they cancel each out -- which might still be bad. But in all likelyhood the cruise control is cut if VDC kicks in.

My Mazda 3 has neither stability control nor traction control so I definitely keep the cruise control off when it rains. In my Z, I don't think I've ever used it rain or shine ...

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VQStryker

Interesting statement and most likely true but for the cars with traction control.

good observation

My_third_Z

My old boss mentioned the sunglasses during the rain trick. Sunglasses in the rain gets a thumbs up from me. I've been doing it for years.

ZeeingAround

I wish all cars would automatically turn on the headlights when the wipers are on. So many gray and white cars are hard to see. And the drivers are clueless. I flash them all the time with my brights.

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m4a1mustang

And then the drivers flip you off because they have no clue and think you're flashing them because you are just a rude, nasty person.

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shadoquad

I don't know whether it's true or not, but I just can't see why you'd want to cede throttle control to your vehicle in potentially slick conditions. If anything, that's probably where I want it the most.
I've thought of that myself, since it is technically the law where I drive, but I can see practical applications for "wipers on, lights off" when the car is stopped. Maybe that's the answer, if the car is moving more that, say, 40mph with the wipers on, the lights come on automatically.