If you've ever felt your steering go strangely light while driving through heavy rain, you've probably brushed up against aquaplaning. It's one of the more unsettling experiences on the road, and with the wet months lingering around Geelong and the Surf Coast, it's worth understanding what's actually happening under your tyres — and how to avoid it.
What is aquaplaning?
Aquaplaning (also called hydroplaning) happens when your tyres can't push water out of the way fast enough. A layer of water builds up between the tread and the road surface, and for a moment your car is essentially skating rather than gripping. Steering, braking and acceleration all stop working the way you expect, because the rubber simply isn't touching the bitumen.
It doesn't take a flooded road to trigger it. Even a few millimetres of standing water — the kind that pools in wheel ruts on the highway or gathers at the bottom of a dip — can be enough at higher speeds.
Why your tyres matter so much
The grooves in your tyre tread exist largely for this reason: they're channels designed to move water away from the contact patch. A new tyre can clear a surprising amount of water every second. As tread wears down, those channels get shallower, and the tyre's ability to clear water drops away sharply — well before the tyre reaches the legal minimum tread depth of 1.5 mm.
Underinflation makes things worse. A soft tyre changes shape under load, which distorts the tread pattern and reduces how effectively it channels water. So two simple habits — checking your tread and keeping pressures at the placard setting — do more to prevent aquaplaning than anything else.
How to reduce your risk
- Slow down in the wet. Speed is the single biggest factor. The faster you go, the less time your tyres have to clear water from the road surface.
- Watch for standing water. Puddles across wheel ruts, dips and the edges of country roads are prime aquaplaning territory. Ease off before you reach them, not as you hit them.
- Follow in the tracks of the car ahead. Their tyres have already displaced some of the water, giving yours a slightly drier path.
- Avoid sudden inputs. Harsh braking, sharp steering or quick acceleration are all more likely to break traction on a wet road.
- Keep your tyres in good shape. Adequate tread, correct pressure, and even wear across all four tyres give you the best chance of maintaining grip.
What to do if it happens
If the steering suddenly goes light and the engine note rises without the car speeding up, you're aquaplaning. The instinct is to brake hard — resist it. Instead:
- Ease off the accelerator gently and keep the steering wheel pointed where you want to go.
- Don't stamp on the brakes or yank the wheel. Sudden inputs can send the car sideways the moment the tyres regain grip.
- Wait it out. Aquaplaning usually lasts only a second or two. As the car slows, the tyres will bite again and control returns.
If your car has been serviced recently and the tyres are in good condition, modern stability control systems will also help you recover — but they can only work with whatever grip your tyres can find.
A quick check before the next downpour
Uneven wear is a quiet contributor to wet-weather trouble. If one edge of a tyre is wearing faster than the other, that tyre has less usable tread channelling water exactly where it's needed. It's often a sign of a wheel alignment issue, and it's cheap to fix compared with replacing tyres early.
If you're not sure how your tyres would cope in a proper downpour, the team at Global Tyres Geelong in North Geelong can check your tread, pressures and alignment in a few minutes — a small bit of peace of mind before the next wet run down the Ring Road.