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Old 1st July 2017, 12:14   #466
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No wax on glass ever! I'd say you found the culprit
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Old 1st July 2017, 13:52   #467
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re: Safe Driving in the Rains

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Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom View Post
Clean/polish your glass with a cream glass polish, not just a regular liquid cleaner. I've been usiong Auto-Glym since for ever. I just got some CarPro CeriGlass, which, if used on a polishing machine, will actually take out small faults from the glass. ...
Service centre just polished my windscreen. It was mutually accepted that it probably would not get rid of a large stone chip (so, in some ways a waste of money) but, apart from that... wow, it is clean and smooth!

Sadly, Chennai is seriously lacking in rain for real-life testing just now.
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Old 2nd July 2017, 21:37   #468
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re: Safe Driving in the Rains

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Originally Posted by sumeethaldankar View Post
Unfortunately the problem came right back the next day (night actually). The Sonax does help a bit. It clear's the effect fast while driving than before but I am unable to pin point the root cause. I have been using Formula 1 wash and wax to wax the car and use it on the glass as well. I had used it last 1-2 months ago. Can this application cause the haze effect ?
Any wax will cause the haze. I used the Proklear glass treatment two monsoons ago. Nice beads of water that fly off the windscreen at high speeds, almost no need to use wipers -- fine. But haze after wiper blade does its job-- no good ! Disappears instantly, but still irritating. In your case it can be either Proklear or the Formula 1 wax, I think ! The lesson I learnt is to simply drop a piece of body soap (the last bit you cannot use) into the washer fluid tank -- free and does the job adequately !
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Old 2nd July 2017, 23:40   #469
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re: Safe Driving in the Rains

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Service centre just polished my windscreen.
Hmm... so now I have a windscreen which is mostly not too bad. A perfect test bed! so I can try out one of "nano" glass treatments. If it is good, then do the same on the new screen, whenever that happens.
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Old 26th July 2017, 01:54   #470
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Re: ARTICLE: Safe Driving in the Rains - Stray Cattle

Wanted to add a phenomenon related to cattle observed in parts of Rajasthan, UP and MP during rains.

While travelling in rains during rains, I've seen a lot of stray (let loose/orphaned) cattle sitting on the roads. This becomes specially dangerous in the dusk/night when the 'holy' obstruction is invisible till it comes within the headlight spread, leaving very little reaction time for corrective measures.

-Cattle Logic-
They prefer sitting on the dry sections of the roads where mud/slush and insects don't trouble them and constant traffic wafts these bugs away from time to time.
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Old 13th June 2018, 16:58   #471
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re: Safe Driving in the Rains

One of those *many* reasons why driving next to median is dangerous in rains due to accumulated water. Also you can see, how you can get blinded by water splashing from the vehicles in adjacent lanes as they drive over puddles of water or even pass you from the opposite side.


The simple thing to do when such instances occur is to NOT LOSE FOCUS and stay in line and gradually decelerate, and when the visibility is clear start picking up speed.
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Old 25th June 2018, 11:26   #472
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re: Safe Driving in the Rains

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Originally Posted by paragsachania View Post
Also you can see, how you can get blinded by water splashing from the vehicles in adjacent lanes as they drive over puddles of water or even pass you from the opposite side.
Does rain sensing wipers help in such situations? Maybe switching wipers automatically to full speed enables a glimpse of the road ahead through the curtain of water. I have experienced such splashes my self and was unable to manually adjust the wiper in time (no rain sensing wipers in my Polo)
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Old 25th June 2018, 11:44   #473
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re: Safe Driving in the Rains

When in doubt, backout. Don’t dunk your car in what you assume is a puddle of water only to find your car swimming. Be vary of underpasses with accumulated water in particular.

Safe Driving in the Rains-d27759001efd49e29d295f7bc96f4ba2.jpeg
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Old 25th June 2018, 12:12   #474
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re: Safe Driving in the Rains

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Originally Posted by GeeTee TSI View Post
Does rain sensing wipers help in such situations? Maybe switching wipers automatically to full speed enables a glimpse of the road ahead through the curtain of water. I have experienced such splashes my self and was unable to manually adjust the wiper in time (no rain sensing wipers in my Polo)
I think they certainly will but to certain extent albeit slight delay by which your reflexes would otherwise help you to move the stalk to the fastest position to clear the curtain of water.

The only car I drove with Rain sensing wipers was Cruze from Delhi to Bangalore and near Adilabad it was raining intermittently with varied intensity and the system was quick and reliable to wipe based on the intensity of rains.
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Old 25th June 2018, 13:12   #475
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re: Safe Driving in the Rains

Quote:
Originally Posted by GeeTee TSI View Post
Does rain sensing wipers help in such situations? Maybe switching wipers automatically to full speed enables a glimpse of the road ahead through the curtain of water. I have experienced such splashes my self and was unable to manually adjust the wiper in time (no rain sensing wipers in my Polo)
Quote:
Originally Posted by paragsachania View Post
I think they certainly will but to certain extent albeit slight delay by which your reflexes would otherwise help you to move the stalk to the fastest position to clear the curtain of water.
I just experienced this today. I have Skoda Rapid which has Rain sensing wipers. It was raining very heavily since the wee hours this morning and there were lot of water logging everywhere. I was passing under a flyover and there was some huge water splash from the Top. It wasn't raining very heavily that time and the automatic action didn't happen for a few seconds so ended up manually using the wiper instinctively.

Also I must add that though the system is helpful and reliable in heavy rains, however I do end up using the wipers manually during intermittent rains sometimes.
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Old 25th June 2018, 13:25   #476
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re: Safe Driving in the Rains

Just a reminder guys, be super considerate to bikers & pedestrians. While we are sitting in our nice, warm & dry cabins, they are exposed to the elements and are in a particularly dangerous position. Be nice .

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Originally Posted by moralfibre View Post
When in doubt, backout.
My golden rule is to:

1. Wait on the side for another car to pass and gauge how deep it is.

2. If there is no other car, I crawl and keep stopping to check the depth. How? By opening the door and looking at how much the front wheel is submerged in the water. Too deep and I back out.
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Old 25th June 2018, 13:34   #477
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re: Safe Driving in the Rains

Gentlemen I have a question:


Life is a never ending learning game and recently I had goosebumps while driving in Himanchal Pradesh between Rampur to Karchham, which is a single lane road with vertical free falls (the famous rock arch of Kinnaur); the issue I faced was night drive (9 pm), very very heavy downpour (literally raining cats and dogs) and a hilly route.

I find myself a confident driver in most of the situations but this time I was hell scared, at times I just didn't knew where I am or where the road is. There have been a few instances where I could estimate that I am on the road solely because my tyres were moving on a smooth surface and at times I was literally driving at under 15 km/hr just to earn the time to make a guess over where the road exactly is.

Any tips or suggestions from experts who have a wide experience of such situation will be welcome. I have always been avoiding the combination of hills + night + heavy rainfall; as taught by the guru who taught me driving, this was the first time I was stuck and I could feel that I just don't know how to exactly deal with this situation other than just keep driving slowly looking ahead like an Ostrich (I ended up with pain in eyes and a paining neck at the end of the drive which lasted about just 45 minutes, but was very stressful).

Last edited by VKumar : 25th June 2018 at 13:37.
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Old 25th June 2018, 13:44   #478
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re: Safe Driving in the Rains

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Originally Posted by VKumar View Post
I have always been avoiding the combination of hills + night + heavy rainfall;
A very good advice to self that is. It is way too difficult to drive in rains and hills especially at night and when the intensity of super heavy that visibility is really bad.

The only thing I normally do is adjust the beams to the lowest position and then play around with Hi and Lo beams. This is because, when you are driving in rains and hills (coupled with darkness), you always have to light up the closest area ahead of you so that things become more visible. If you are on high beam and the position is set to highest level, you are merely lighting up the water droplets and ignoring the road right ahead of you.

This may not always help but will certainly assist you in terms of making a visible assessment on whether you are on the road of Off Road. At times, this also helps you because you can distinguish the flowing water on the edge of the road against the water flowing On the road although I cannot really explain it by words.
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Old 25th June 2018, 15:11   #479
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Sunglasses in the rain

Last night I was driving from Mumbai to Pune. The rains were really really heavy. The visibility was quite low, due to the rain and cars were going pretty slow. Now as I approached Kharghar flyover, I recollected an article which mentioned wearing sunglasses in heavy rain, while driving at night. Now this seemed quite risky, but wanted to test this theory. So I slowed down on the left most lane and put on my sunglasses. And indeed the visibility was much better. The light diffusion due to the rain was almost gone.
Drove past the flyover and in that section the street lights were off. This reduced the visibility and I immediately took the sunglasses off. Didn't want to take any undue risk.

Now on the expressway, once again heavy rains lashed us. The traffic was less and hence tried the sunglasses again. The effect was good and the visibility improved. Despite no street lights. Drove for a while and again took them off.

Mine are not Polaroid glasses. And yet the effect was pretty good.

Still, wouldn't want to try try this on a long term till I understand this better. Still find this risky.

Any thoughts?
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Old 25th June 2018, 15:38   #480
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re: Safe Driving in the Rains

Quote:
Originally Posted by paragsachania View Post
The simple thing to do when such instances occur is to NOT LOSE FOCUS and stay in line and gradually decelerate, and when the visibility is clear start picking up speed.
Thanks for sharing, has happened too many times with me, 90% of the times, it was because of others, 10%, because of the Scorpio's inability to not splash water onto the windscreen.

I freeze, no movement and just dab on the brakes.

Quote:
Originally Posted by GeeTee TSI View Post
Does rain sensing wipers help in such situations?
If you believe me, they do, by few fractions and these fractions count.
Quote:
Originally Posted by moralfibre View Post
. Be vary of underpasses with accumulated water in particular.
Once bitten, twice shy, never ever trust an underpass or a shallow area, no matter in which SUV you are, unless you can gauge its depth in foolproof manner.
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