Road conditions: driving in rain
Driving in rain is something that you can be sure you will experience regularly once you are an actual driver, although depending where you live and the time of year you learnt, you might have experienced it surprisingly little whilst you were learning to drive.
Now, when it comes to driving in the rain, braking is most clearly affected. Indeed if you have to break quickly it can take twice or longer for you to be able to stop the car. The reason for this is that the grip of the tyres on the road surface is less effective when it is wet, and so in addition the wheels can lock up.
This means that you should brake less strongly than you would in ordinary road conditions, and pro rata you should adjust your speed to the road conditions and go more slowly in rain than you normally would.
If there are any visibility issues at all from the rain even if it is light, then as a first step you should use your headlights on dipped. And make sure the windscreen is always clean: some learners have never actually needed to put the wipers on until they have passed their test, and indeed to squirt the windscreen also to clean it.
Sometimes you might have to drive through water on the road, such as a ford.
Common sense tells you to look for the shallowest point in it, as far as you can tell, and indeed that is what you should do, before driving through it slowly. When doing so you should select first gear and keeping the engine speed relatively high so that you do not risk stalling.
It is recommended that whenever you've been through water like that you then test the brakes afterwards to ensure that they are not affected: to do this simply drive slowly with one foot on the accelerator on the other pressing gently on the brake. This will let you test that the brakes are still working well.
Related Articles...
Staying calm in your driving test
There is no doubt that many people get extremely nervous before the driving practical test, and whilst this can be frustrating or disconcerting, it is not necessarily a bad thing. Many people...
The automatic transmission explained
Whilst the automatic transmission system is very clever, you still need to have some control over it, and this is where the selector lever comes into play, which is in the place that you would have...
Your ignition warning light
When you turn on the electrical circuits in your car, then the ignition warning light will come on: make sure that this does indeed happen.
Once the engine itself is started, then the ignition...
Hazard Perception
There has been a significant increase in the focus of hazard perception and hazard awareness in the last few years since the introduction by the DSA of a separate hazard perception element to the...
How does the hazard perception test work
The hazard perception test is the second part of the driving theory test, and it was introduced towards the end of 2002.
There are two parts to the theory test, and the second part of the test...
Professional driving instructors
When you learn to drive, you have the choice who teaches you. The majority of people decide to learn through a professional driving instructor and often through a major school of...
Why is there a Hazard Perception Test
The statistics have long shown that the newer the driver, the more likely they are to be involved in accidents on the roads. This is probably because they are inexperienced as drivers, although...
Typical brake faults outlined
The brakes are a mechanical object and so it is possible that they will develop problems and not function the way that they should be. This is clearly very dangerous because brakes are one of the...
Oil in your car and oil pressure
Oil is not something that you might think is essential to the operation of a car, but infact it is. Oil acts as a lubricant for the moving parts such as the moving parts of the engine, and it is...
More on Motorway Driving
Signs that let you know there is a motorway ahead are rectangular, and they have a green background. This shows that they are information signs on a primary road.
The part with the reference...
Back to home page of driving theory test questions
