A warning as you travel...............

[Emilysmom]

Before I cut and paste this from an email I just received, I want to say that I checked it out at SNOPES.com. While it might or might not be an actual story of a 36 year old woman in TX, the advice is (according to Snopes) totally accurate.

GOOD TO KNOW

I wonder how many people know about
this ~ A 36 year old female had an
accident several weeks ago and totaled
her car. A resident of Kilgore,
Texas she was traveling between
Gladewater & Kilgore. It was raining,
though not excessively, when her car
suddenly began to hydro-plane and
literally flew through the air. She was not
seriously injured but very
stunned at the sudden occurrence!

When she explained to the highway
patrolman what had happened he told
her something that every driver should
know - NEVER DRIVE IN THE RAIN WITH
YOUR CRUISE CONTROL ON. She thought
she was being cautious by setting the
cruise control and maintaining a safe
consistent speed in the rain.

But the highway patrolman told her that
if the cruise control is on when your car
begins to hydro-plane and your tires lose
contact with the pavement, your car will
accelerate to a higher rate of speed
making you take off like an airplane.
She told the patrolman that was exactly
what had occurred.

The patrolman said this warning should be
listed, on the driver's seat sun-visor -
NEVER USE THE CRUISE CONTROL WHEN
THE PAVEMENT IS WET OR ICY,
along with the airbag warning. We tell our
teenagers to set the cruise control and
drive a safe speed - but we don't tell
them to use the cruise control only when
the pavement is dry.

The only person the accident victim
found, who knew this (besides the
patrolman), was a man who had had
a similar accident, totaled his car and
sustained severe injuries.

If you send this to people and only
one of them doesn't know about this,
then it was all worth it. You might have
saved a life.

NOTE: Some vehicles (like the Toyota
Sienna Limited XLE) will not allow you
to set the cruise control when the
windshield wipers are on.

[Googsmom aka Jennifer]

I never knew that. Good thing I can't even figure out how to turn mine on

[Emilysmom]

I use mine all the time in an effort to keep from getting speeding tickets. (Even that doesn't always work!)
So, I was glad to read about this. I guess it's sort of common sense, but I hadn't thought about it before.

[victoriasdad]

what is a cruise control?

[Jackie]

I will have to ask Jessica my DIL about this. She had a similar accident (also in TX) almost 4 yrs ago in a Ford Expedition. It was raining and she hydroplaned and hit the median flipping the car 3 times. She landed upright but hit the windhield and remarkably just knocked herself out. She was 4 months pg at the time with Tabitha who just turned 3. Also with her and strapped into their car seats were Sam 4 and Max 3.

The car was totaled ...son David was at a conference a thousand miles away...so it was a tense time. But all 4 survived in great shape. I have no idea if she was using cruise control...she was on the way to Lake Charles to visit her mom.

Jackie