6 tips for keeping safe when driving in the rain

With the weather in England being extremely temperamental, and with an average of 156 days of rainfall a year, it seems fairly obvious that we all have to become accustomed to driving in the rain at some point. There’s a number of precautions that you should take when driving in the rain so today we’ve teamed up with car leasing experts to find out their best tips for driving safely in wet conditions.

Reduce your speed

While this may seem like a fairly obvious point, it’s also an incredibly important one. Your stopping distance when driving in the rain will double so it’s imperative that you take extra care and leave plenty of space between you and the car in front.

Use your headlights

As the colder and darker months are slowly approaching, it’s essential that you remember to use your headlights when necessary. Rainy weather conditions can also mean that visibility is significantly reduced so it’s a good idea to keep the road in front of you as clear and lit up as possible (obviously taking care to ensure that you’re not dazzling any other drivers).

Ensure your tyres are in good condition

If your tyres become bald, they will lose their grip which ensures you stay safe when driving in wet weather conditions. The legal tread depth of tyres is a minimum of 1.6mm around the central three quarters of the tyre; this means in order to ensure your safety (and the safety of others) your tyres need to be kept in pristine condition.

Replace your windscreen wipers

Aside from the obvious point of actually using your windscreen wipers when it’s raining, it’s also recommended that you should replace your wipers every six to twelve months to ensure that they’re working efficiently and are not leaving your windscreen looking blurry and smudged.

Demist your windows

During bad weather conditions, windows can become obscured by condensation, therefore it’s ideal that you keep your heating on in the car so that your windows are kept clear at all times. Windows that have steamed up can make it very hard to see out of, which means your vision can become obscured.

Aquaplaning

This is when water gets in between the car tyres and the road and causes the driver to lose control of the car. It can cause a lot of drivers to panic if this occurs but it’s important to remain as calm as possible. If this situation arises, you must try and keep calm, ease off the accelerator, don’t brake and allow your speed to reduce gradually until you can regain control of the vehicle.

As the colder (and wetter) months are slowly approaching, there’s never been a better time to ensure that you’re as safe as possible when driving in potentially dangerous conditions. Make sure you adhere to the advice featured above so that you can rest-assured that you’ll be as safe as possible this autumn.