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Originally Posted by JC
If you hit a long puddle the car would slow down from the increased resistance especially if it's deep. The cruise control would certainly apply more gas to try to get the car to accelerate. Like you said the cruise doesn't react very fast. When you get out of the puddle, the gas is still down but all of sudden you don't have the resistance of the puddle. Off goes your car. The cop may have been a bit dramatic, but the scenario is possible.
JC
My cruise doesn't work.  |
Well, the original "scenario" from the "highway patrolman" is stating that the car hydroplanes, instead of hitting increased resistance. Increased resistance implies that your tires are still in contact with the road, which means you still have traction. Hydroplaning means that the tires float up on top of the standing water, creating essentially zero resistance to your forward movement.
And even if you do plow through a puddle, meet increased resistance and the car slows down, the cruise will apply throttle to compensate, and once you're out of the puddle it will only take you back up to whatever speed you were at before hitting the puddle. Then you're not even in water anymore, the car has full traction again, and it certainly isn't going to "accelerate to a higher rate of speed and take off like an airplane."
I don't know if the story is bogus or not, but I think the explanation certainly is.