what would scooby do

.. in todays paper @70mph due to aquaplaning on a motorway...


My question is- are ferraries so shoddy they can't handle aquaplaning @70... or is somebody telling porkies about the real speed ??


p.s. the car ended upside down ??

Redkop

My car aquaplanes @ 50 - 60mph - it's because of the 18 x 8 wheels. Went from middle lane to hard shoulder after hitting surface water at about 55mph. Scary!!

ajm

The car could handle it.... obviously the weak link was the overpaid ego driving it!

Matt P

The speed at which a car aquaplanes is a function of the tire size and pressure, not who made the car. And for most cars it's somewhere between 55 - 80 mph, with fat tyres offering lower resistance to aquaplane than narrower ones. So yes, it *could* have been 70 mph.

what would scooby do

Yeah maybe

Fatman

OK, I'm not particularly 'up' on current celebrities, but who's Ricketts?

Andy Porter

A footballer m8, either Middlesborough or Tottenham,

Leslie

It all depends on the tyres,very little to do with the car. If the tread is well down or it is a poor design and cannot clear the water wedge which builds up in front of the tyre, then it is likely to aquaplane.

Les

Dracoro

If the tyres are fairly worn, that would affect matters too.

Boro

iTrader: (1)

Just for the record, he plays for Boro (Middlesbrough - just 1 "o")

Surely Ferrari's should have decent enough tyres so maybe the combination of speed, big water and large tyre sizes and a bend all contributed.

I cant help thinking that if he was driving at 70mph in a Ferrari and that happened, why didnt the 1500 mondeos behind him do the same?

Spoon

Driving my Porsche on a by-pass I had a right dose of aquaplaning at less than 60 mph. I was actually expecting it so nothing came of it except a lane change but as the road was empty it was fine.

My car would handle superbly in the wet but if there was any standing water about then a fiesta would make more progress and safer.

Boro

iTrader: (1)

Maybe it IS the stupidly wide tyres then

Matt P

Because a) the Mundanos weren't on foot-wide rubber and b) they weren't trying to deploy 400 or whatever bhp to the tarmac at the time

Leslie

It is dependent on the tyre pressure as well as the tread design and tyre wear. The formula to calculate aquaplane speed for an aircraft is 9 x the square root of the tyre pressure. Car tyres have a better tread design and will clear the water more easily so that formula does not apply very accurately for cars.

I once aquaplaned for 5500 feet in a Canberra when I was forced to land on a flooded runway. No fuel to land anywhere else. It was not wise to open up to go round again either since Canberras were prone to engine surge on the runway in heavy water spray. It stopped about 5 yards before going into the runway barrier which I had called for! I felt a bit like B2Zero on his bike after that

Les

Steve Whitehorn

iTrader: (13)

I had it happen to me in an M3 once at 40mph.
I am under the impression that the fatter the tyre and the lower the car the more easily water gets trapped. So lower 'sportier' cars have a tendancy to do this.
As some one said you are better off in a fiesta or the like.
That sounds a bit hairy Leslie!!!
Steve

Fatman

...similar logic to the 'Impreza in the snow' discussions as couple of months ago, I suppose. Fat tyres cause lower pressures between the tyre and the road surface.

Chris L

True - it has little to do with the car. It's all about driving at the correct speed for the conditions. Sanity should tell you that a large powerful sportscar with ultra low profile fat tyres and rain do not mix.

Chris

Spoon

Not quite, it's standing water only that is the problem.

S.B.

Isn't he in coronation street

hoskib

iTrader: (1)

a more shocking title would have been :-

"ricketts actually scores a goal!"

The Zohan

Shame he crashed it, is he OK?

As for aquaplaning it has happened to me on a couple of occasions, it is not fun, luckily i survived.

Tyre size, how much standing water on the road and the amount of tread are the deciding factors IMHO.

Chris L

Splitting hairs spoon. As I recall, it is the rain that causes the standing water! It's no different to the Scoob. It suffers from exactly the same problem. My issue is lack of driver training and awareness means that people do not adjust their driving style to match the conditions. If it is raining there is a chance of standing water.

Chris

Spoon

Not at all Chris, I accept your driver training angle but you can easily be travelling along a road some time after it has been raining and the rest of the road is visibly dry only to be confronted by a part of the road with bad/blocked drainage only to find yourself in trouble.

No amount of driver training can foresee this as much as perhaps local knowledge.

In any case my reply was just take you up on the fact that "a large powerful sportscar with ultra low profile fat tyres and rain do not mix." They do, they just don't like standing water.

Leslie

Tread design has a lot to do with it too, some tyres are really bad at clearing the water build up in front of the tyre. I have found that the best tyres under those conditions are F1 D3's. Yes the profile of the tyre will have an effect too, a wider profile tyre will get on top of the water wedge more easily. It is possible to scald a tyre with superheated steam which will form in the contact patch of the tyre. I think this is unlikely with a car but it happens to aircraft tyres regularly. This is when the wheel has stopped rotating on top of the water while the aircraft is still travelling like a bat out of hell!

Les

Leslie

Wouldn't have missed it for anything Bravo.

Les

The_Lizard

I once nearly lost my Escort to hydroplaning ... wait, twice.

The first time was on badly worn tires, on a 65 mph road, in a heavy Wisconsin thunderstorm. I realized that I had to turn the wheel more and more to the left, against the torque-steer to the right, to go in a straight line. So I lifted off the throttle, and after losing about 5 mph, the tires bit again and the car snapped back into control.

The second time involved hitting a long puddle at the same speed - it made the car snap into a fishtail which I was able to steer out of after three or four swings.