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Originally Posted by onesnowyowl
Let me clarify where I'm coming from. I live in a state with a great amount of rain. The basic rule states that you must drive at a speed that is reasonable and cautious for existing conditions. Even if I am only going 30 mph, it is totally within the realm of possibility that I can hydroplane. Furthermore, hydroplaning doesn't always equal existing rain. It means that there is water on the roadway. That means I could be going a cautious 60 in a 65, hit standing water, and hydroplane. Visibility also doesn't always allow you to see just how much water is on the roadway at any one point. This happens frequently around these parts, as some of our roads (I-205 before the repaving comes to mind) are quite rutted and hold on to water well.
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I find it hard to believe that you can hydroplane at 30mph but perhaps that's faster than I realize (I come from a metric country).
To give you an idea of the expectations of the
Province of Ontario, if you skid (or hydroplane, or your ABS activates) during your road test, for any reason, you automatically fail your exam. You don't even get to finish, you simply drive back to the lot and get a big red "failed" stamped on your test sheet.
If you skid, you were going too fast for the conditions and you, as a licensed driver, should know better...
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Furthermore, if you slowed down too much on a busy interstate like I-5, you would get pulled over by the state police. People here are quite capable of driving 70 mph in a blinding rainstorm (my family calls it "driving the submarine"), and the state police don't take too kindly to people holding up traffic by going 30 below what everyone else is clocking.
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I don't know what the I-5 is like but
here, you drive no faster than what is safe for your vehicle, regardless of what speed other people are driving. Most streets where congestion is possible have more than one lane, and the convention is that the right is the cruising lane and the left is the passing lane. If others can drive faster than you, they may pass you on the left so there's no reason why your speed should hold up traffic...