I drove back from St. Pete last night after watching the IRL race. A big storm system was moving across our return route and yes we got it pretty much full bore. On a scale from 1-10 (1 very light sprinkles almost virga, to 10, a full blown Biblical downpour) it was probably about a 6 for the 1st half of the trip.
I drive a Civic SI, a very manueverable car, with 4 of the best rain tires ever invented (Goodyear Eagles), but even then I was uncomfortable going any faster than 65, and could indeed feel her hydroplaning at times.
Despite all this I had to endure an endless supply of SUVs and semi trucks zooming by us in the fast lane, many doing 80+. In conditions like this if one of those loses control that will be a Very Bad Thing, not only for the empty-headed bungholebrain who completely ignores the conditions and wrecks himself, but also for any poor slob who gets caught up in it. But no Let’s All Pretend That It Is A Bright, Bright, Sunshiney Day and ignore the laws of physics, shall we? Saw about half-a-dozen wrecks on the way back BTW.
And where was the vaunted Florida Highway Patrol during all this? Conspicuous by their absence-only Ka alerts I got on my detector were from local sheriffs, one of which pulled us over looking for a similar vehicle (drugrunner I guess-he let us go. On the way down on Sat. morning we saw about 8 troopers). I suppose comfort trumps the public interest, as I am glad that they were all nice and comfy back in their warm beds on a Sunday night while madness & mayhem ensued. But you just know they’ll be back out there Monday morning during calm and sunny conditions reaping their quotas.
Yep… I saw a guy on I-4 pulling a boat on a trailer and I swear the boat was producing a wake.
Anyway, if you’ve lived here for any length of time you should know that Florida drivers don’t give a shit about rain or stopping distances or any silly details like that.
I was coming back from Orlando heading south on I-95. Right before I hit Sebastian, the rain went from a 6 to about a 9 for 20 minutes. I was going about 30 mph in my Hyundai with balding front tires and shitty windshield wipers. Fucking scary.
It’s always half-comical, half-scary when driving in the rain here in LA. The freeways out here begin to flood pretty easily whenever we have any significant precipitation, and the freeways become an interesting mix of people who slow down in the extreme to 30mph and those who continue driving at 80mph as if rain were no factor at all. These are the times that I will take the streets if it’s an option at all because the two types of drivers I’ve described above aren’t necessarily in the most appropriate lanes for their rate of travel, either.
Fortunately, we don’t get rain like that often, but when we do, the top story on the news the next day is always the ridiculous number of pile-ups on the freeways.
OTOH, it’s a very validating experience when you later see the cars that zoomed past you, piled up in the ditch. I remember one crazy driver who flew by on the Eisenhower Expressway, and about 5 minues later it was on its back spinning on its roof when I passed it.
The odd thing is those are the same people who go 35 mph in the 55’s here in kissimmee and stop with about 18 car lengths between themselves and the next guy while blaring their stereos.
The cautious drivers the OP can’t find were in NH yesterday morning. Channel 9 warned that there were a “few icy spots out there” during the weather forecast. This is probably true, but I live close to 50 miles from the station, and our roads were fine here. This did not stop someone from holding up at least 50 cars on the way to work by going 10-15 miles an hour. Not 10-15 under the speed limit, but literally 10-15 miles an hour like one might when caught unawares by a raging blizzard and desperate to get home least you be stranded by closing highways. It took me 15 minutes to go 4 miles! I assumed there must be an accident or roadwork, but it turned out to just be an asshole at the head of the line.
Goodyear makes at least a dozen different varieties of the Eagle tire. If you’re hydroplaning on yours, then they are not “one of the best rain tires ever invented”, much less one of the better Eagles that Goodyear makes. I’m genuinely curious to know where it’s stated that the Goodyear Eagle is “one of the best rain tires ever invented”, if you’d be so kind as to indulge me.
There are quite a few shitty varieties of the Eagle tire in their product lineup, but there are also a few pretty good ones. Mind you, Honda does not use the latter as OEM equipment. Of course, not minding the fact that there is no such thing as a “rain tire” in the first place (with the possible exception of highly specialized wet radials using on formula racers during inclement racing conditions), I’m guessing that yours are probably whatever standard all-season variety Honda decided to use as OEM equipment. I know for a fact that they use the Eagle RS-A on the current Si. I had the same tire on my 2.3L Mazda 3, and it’s absolutely the worst tire I’ve ever had on a car, ever. Not only do they handle like shit in rain, but they don’t handle at ALL in snow, and I’ve gone through three of them due to busted sidewalls because the ply is apparently made of popsicle sticks. My summer tires (BFGoodrich g-Force KDW2) are as sensational in the wet as they are dry, and my winter snows (Dunlop Winter Sport M3) make the Eagles seem like the snow sleds they are by comparison. All-season OEMs are a joke regardless of the OEM or manufacturer. The OEM makes them as cheap as possible and the manufacturer uses them to keep costs down. Just as a cell-phone with an MP3 player and a camera is neither a good MP3 player, nor a good camera, an all-season OEM tire is neither a good summer, nor a good snow tire.
You may also find this a shock, but most of the trucks and SUVs you complain about tend to have have much more expensive tires than your econo-Eagles, with much deeper treads and more efficient water channels, making them cut through water and hydroplane a lot less than you seem to be. This is why they can go faster and maintain control, so perhaps you should stop blaming SUVs with better tires that allow them to go across water, and get a new set of decent tires if your sliding Civic bothers you so.
