Hydroplaning and other driving concerns

Last weekend, some friends and colleagues from the motoring media (Jaykee Evangelista, Top Gear’s senior art director, and Mikko David, our lensman and Motorsports editor, also at Top Gear) went on a road trip to Subic for the day. Our total trip would cover just under 400 kilometers in a single day, and with less than a single tank of gasoline.

Think back for a minute on those words I have just said. Under 400 kilometers in a day, in a single tank of gasoline. The gasoline part is easy, sure. Drive carefully and that’s doable. The more amazing part was the just under 400 kilometers in a single day.

A decade ago, covering such large distance in a single day would not have been an easy feat one can decide to do on a whim. A decade ago (seems like a lifetime now for me), a trip to Subic would take the better part of three hours when you consider traffic and our deplorable roads. Two hours from Manila to Subic was quite exciting already, and below that, taxing and stressful, if not downright dangerous. But now, a speed freak can do Manila to Subic in about 75 minutes with relative ease. We completed the drive from Subic to Manila in about two hours with three stops along the way, impressive given the volume of traffic on the road that time. Afterwards, I went to Alabang to fetch my wife from her bazaar. I felt tired, sure, but what was amazing is that I even considered doing it all in a single day. Grand total? I covered roughly 470 kilometers in a single day, including my trip to Alabang and doing some errands along the way before finally calling it a night. Of course, being inside the plush Audi A7 helps a lot, but if our roads were as bad as it were a decade ago, I’d need a helicopter to cover that mileage without getting dead tired.

No, I am not encouraging overspeeding. But rather, I am highlighting the huge progress our government has made in improving public infrastructure, particularly our roads, bridges and the like. I’ve done Manila to Clark, picking up a friend and client from the DMIA Airport in about an hour, sticking to the speed limits (somewhat). It’s about the same amount of time I’d spend going over to the Naia Complex at the height of rush-hour traffic.

What’s my point? We finally have a good number of world-class roads, particularly highways. And we definitely need more of these roads if we want our country to progress even further, speed up trade and business, improve safety, increase convenience, decrease congestion and make things more fun in the Philippines as the popular tourism slogans always say.  And no, I still do not mean we can all overspeed like crazy.

But improvements in our roads mean one thing: Average speeds are higher. Everyone will be pushing for the top end of the speed limit to make it in time for their own respective schedules. This leads to a serious issue: We need improvement in our driving skills, and of course, in our car’s overall conditions and state of tune—giving more importance and attention to our vehicle’s maintenance.

Last week, I went over to my project in Muntinlupa and SLEx was raining quite hard. Three vehicles figured in an accident—a truck slammed into the center barrier prior to the Filinvest Exit, and two cars figured into an accident, one rear-ending the car in front. This is a guess, but I feel the truck driver either avoided another vehicle (nowhere to be seen) or it probably hydro-planned and couldn’t break and slammed into the center concrete barrier (highly likely). The car that rear-ended the other car might have been tailgating and not realizing that he didn’t have enough space ahead to brake safely, or the vehicle’s tires were of poor condition (wrongly-inflated, misaligned, bald, any or all of the above). A few months ago, an 18-wheel carrying a huge container for chemicals toppled over on SLEx southbound lane just past San Pedro Exit, causing monstrous traffic. It looked like it avoided another car that had lost control, and had also toppled over although both vehicles didn’t come into contact with each other.

Have you experienced hydroplaning in the extreme? Have you lost control of your vehicle while going on a straight line due to hydro-planning or tire blowout or similar? It’s not funny, and very scary indeed. The driver’s skills improvement isn’t easy, but it can be done. Various groups offer one-on-one expert tuition to improve road-craft skills in driving, such as the Tuason Racing School. But improving your vehicle is as easy as taking it to the casa, or your favorite and trusted independent talyer, and having the experts look it over. In countries such as the United Kingdom, all vehicles undergo extensive inspection and testing before they are certified for legal road use. Acquiring a license also takes months and months of recorded driving with an instructor, and passing through rigorous tests both in the classroom and behind the wheel. As for me, I need to go freshen up my skills soon if I’ll be driving a lot of other people’s expensive cars quickly on our world-class roads.