Auto Gossip

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33786, 7 March 1975, Page 4

Auto Gossip

by

A.J.P.

Most drivers realise that their chances of having an accident are higher when the roads are wet than when they are dry, but it is not often one sees a figure put on one’s chances. But according to the National Roads Board's newsletter. it has been estimated from research that the wet-road accident rate is about 2.5 times that for dry roads.

Working on 1971 figures. Mr J. W. Leßaige, of the Ministry of Works, has found that 27 per cent of the accidents that year happened on wet roads. Relating this figure to the amount of time for which the road was wet, he has; come up with the result. We have had more than our share of wet' roads in the last 12 months, and in the next few months we should have a lot more, so these figures are worth bearing in mind. Your chances of a wetroad accident rise, too, if you tyres are badly worn, or your steering or brakes

are faulty. Then there is another side to it: rain cuts visibility, and reduced visibility also increases the chances of an accident. I suspect a major human factor, however, is that many drivers who do not not realise how drastically their car’s grip on the road can be reduced by rain on a sealed surface.

A youth, emerging from his Mini just after it had vanished through a fence] on one Christchurch cornetone wet night recently, said plaintively: “But I was 1 only doing 25.” So he was, and on a dry road that would have been a shade too fast for the corner. On a wet road, it was disastrous. It is fair to say that an] experienced driver would ] not have attempted the 1 corner at 25 m.p.h. on a wet road. But there are) many drivers who really | fall into this category, and; they are not all young, either. The lesson of ex-, perience is simple: treat wet roads with considerable respect.