The 1 Thing You Should Never, Ever Do If Your Car Is Hydroplaning

On rainy days, hydroplaning when you drive over enough water that your cars tires lose traction with the road, and you lose the power to steer, brake and accelerate is every drivers worst fear.  

Its like being a boat. Your tires are completely not in contact with the asphalt, explained Mike Thomas, a driving instructor for 27 years and co-founder of AllGood Driving School  in Northern California. Youre at the mercy of whatever position your car is going to be in when your tires hit the pavement again. Its very scary. 

No driver wants to be in this position. But if the worst comes to pass and one of your tires or all of them! is hydroplaning, theres one thing you can do to not make things worse.

The biggest mistake is panicking and slamming the brakes. 

When your car is skidding out of your control, its normal to feel afraid. Just remember to stay calm. Keep a firm grip on your steering wheel and slowly take your foot off of the accelerator without braking until your tires regain traction. 

The big mistake is a sudden movement like jerking your wheel or slamming the brakes. 

In a video demonstration, Ryan Pszczolkowski, tire program manager for Consumer Reports, walks through why you do not want to make a sudden hard turn:

As we get back onto dry asphalt, you have your wheels turned. Now all of a sudden, we have grip and the car lurches to the left, which is why you dont want to turn, Pszczolkowski explains  to a reporter, as they drive in a hydroplaning car. 

The goal is to get traction back underneath your tires as soon as possible. That means not taking your hands off the wheel and staying alert.

If one of your rear tires starts hydroplaning and slides your car to the right, turn into the skid and turn right to try to reestablish traction, said Steve Frank, co-owner of Pinellas Driving School  in Florida.

Youre basically stopping the car from spinning around, he said. 

Braking hard is not only useless when hydroplaning it may cause your brakes to lock up, which will not be helpful when you do regain control over your tires. 

If you lock up your brakes, and youre going a little bit sideways and then you hit the pavement again ... you could flip over, Thomas said. 

There are a few steps you should take to reduce hydroplaning.

If your car is hydroplaning, there is little you can do until your tires re-establish traction, which is why experts say its best to avoid ever being in that position. Heres what you should be doing to lower your odds of hydroplaning:

Monitor your tire pressure. 

Properly inflated tires with good tread depth are the number-one way to avoid hydroplaning, Frank said. 

Its harder for water to get through the grooves of a bald, under-inflated tire.  So dont ignore any warnings from your tire pressure monitoring system, Frank said. 

Be extra careful in the beginning of storms. 

You have a greater chance of hydroplaning in the first minutes of a storm than in the thick of it, especially if it has not rained in some time.

Its more slippery after it first starts raining than after its been raining for a while, Frank said, because all of the oil and grease thats been left on the road from cars will float on top of water and make the surface especially slick. 

Dont drive quickly in storms and dont drive at all in flood conditions. 

Driving slowly in hazardous conditions like storms gives you more time to not have to react quickly to things by braking or turning hard, Frank said. 

And avoid driving over standing water or puddles if you can help it, because underneath that little puddle might be a gigantic pothole. 

Some storms may mean its better to not drive at all. A road flooded with running water can be especially dangerous.

People often underestimate the power of rushing water, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration explains on its website. It only takes 12 inches of rushing water to carry away most cars, and just two feet of rushing water can carry away most trucks and SUVs.

No one wants to experience hydroplaning, but if you do, you wont have time to frantically look up an answer on what to do. Staying calm is the best first step.