OT: No Cruise Control In Wet Conditions!
 

Thought I would pass this along to the OSO crowd:

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 excessive, 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 YOUR 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 loose 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. We all know you have little or no control over a car when it begins to hydroplane. You are at the mercy of the Good Lord. The highway patrol estimated her car was actually traveling through the air at 10 to 15 miles per hour faster than the speed set on the cruise control. The patrolman said this warning should be listed, on the drivers seat sunvisor - 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.

I dont use CC at all....Takes my mind away from the road...

to me this does not make sence:confused: Now if your CC operated of GPS maybe, buy the spedo is on the drive wheels so if anything when they broke free it would go into coast mode..?? right??

OK, explain to my dumb A$$ how a truck will fly thru the air 10-15 mphs faster then what the cruse control is set for unless it is going down or over a hill?

I also think that if the tires break loose (hydroplane) the cruse control with disconnect.

Looks like others beat me to the post button

No the CC will not let go until you brake. If you are alert you can feel this and hit the brake fast. You have to be alert. And then start to steer out of it.

In the event of the driving tires losing contact with the road surface,the wheels will have a tendency to spin,thusly fooling the powertrain control module or on older vehicles the cruise control module into thinking that the vehicle is gaining speed. The result is that the cruise control will throttle back,not accelerate. Most modern vehicles will either shut off the cruise control due to the sudden rpm increase( run away protection) and many equipped with traction control will even apply the brakes. As to "flew through the air faster than it was going on land", ya,thats likely. The wind resistence acting on the vehicle would immediately start to slow the vehicle the instant the driving wheels lost contact with the ground unless it was a) falling off a cliff, b) had one hell of a tail wind or c) was being driven on a planet where physics do not apply to reality.

The only way i can see that scenario working, is if the speedo runs off the non-drive wheels, getting the speed reading from the ABS sensors, or whatnot. Then the moment the non drive wheels left the pavement, they would immediately slow, which the cruise control would read, as a slowdown, and apply throttle.

Thanks Guys' I'll pass this along to the sticker people (mandates and such ) here at 'Daimler(Damnear)Chrysler'.......... I've always thought that was something that needed to be emphasized as the vehicle doesn't just cruise when the tires break loose............ I am guilty of doing it pulling sleds up north being in a false sense of security, in fact the cruise/antilock hardware/software can't judge actual ground speed.......not yet but ...........stay tuned until that type of simple dynamic (basic gps function) is added to all the electronic packs across the board ............ Until that time this will remain an important concern........;) ;)

I always found it interesting how a decerating car "will take take off like an airplane." Technicalities aside, it is some good advice. Guess that's one advantage for front wheel drive.

Cruise control in control
 

Just to see what would happen one day, driving a floor console AT, I bumped the shift lever into nuetral with the cruise set. I knew what might happen, so I had a foot ready for the brake pedal, damn did stuff happen fast. Maybe what happened in the incident mentioned earlier in this thread was that the engine spooled up and then the vehicle took off as traction was regained? Scary regardless.