Under What Conditions Should You Not Be Using Cruise Control?

Have you ever been driving along using your cruise control and had your wheels slip when you were driving down the road? Your cruise control system was not designed to be used in bad weather or on icy roads. This article explains why you should not use cruise control in the rain and why you should really only be using cruise control if the roads are dry.

What Is Cruise Control?

Cruise control is a feature that is installed on all new vehicles and should still be an option on most older vehicles even going back to the ’90s.  While cruise control technology has been updated over the years the basic function of cruise control is to make sure that your vehicle maintains a steady speed depending on whatever speed to you set it to.

The Downsides Of Cruise Control

While the technology in cruise control has been improved over the years it is still a somewhat unintelligent system.  Cruise control is designed to make sure that your vehicle maintains a certain speed regardless of what kind of road surface you are driving on.  

This can become a problem for you if you are driving with your cruise control on and you hit a slick spot on the road as your cruise control will remain on and try to power the car through the slick spot.  This can cause your vehicle to hydroplane out of control when you least expect it to.

Why You Shouldn’t Use Cruise Control In The Rain

If you use the cruise control of your vehicle in the rain you are at risk of hydroplaning your car and losing control of it.  As it begins to rain the rainwater will create puddles on the road surface.

If you are driving down the road with your cruise control on your car doesn’t realize that the road surface may have lost some of its grip from the rainwater and continue to accelerate forward as if there was no rain on the road.  

If you hit a spot of water in the road while your cruise control is on your car will continue to accelerate which can cause you to lose control of your car and slide off of the side of the road.  

That is why if it is raining outside you should not use your cruise control while you are driving. If you see a puddle of water in the road you are more likely to slow down and not accelerate through it where your cruise control is not going to know to do that.

Allstate also has a post on its website outlining the dangers of using cruise control in the rain and why you shouldn’t do it.

Why You Shouldn’t Use Cruise Control On Icy Roads

Like I mentioned above most cruise control systems are not going to be intelligent enough to detect if you are driving on icy roads.  This means that if you run into an icy spot on the road your car will still be trying to send power through the wheels to the ground which can make your tires slip and cause you to lose control of the wheel and slide off the road.

If you are ever driving on icy roads you should make sure that you keep your cruise control off and pay attention to the road surface to make sure that you don’t hit any patches of ice that could make you lose control of your vehicle.  

If you do see a patch of ice that you cannot avoid it’s good to slow down before you hit the ice patch so that you will have more control of your vehicle when you hit the ice patch.

Why You Shouldn’t Use Cruise Control On Slick Roads

Even if it is not raining it’s still not a good idea to use your cruise control on wet roads. This is especially true in the fall time when there could be wet leaves on the road. Even if it is not raining at that time a wet road surface can cause your tires to slip especially if your tires are worn down or bald.  

You may have brand new tires, they can also slip on the road surface if you are driving on wet roads.  It’s best to only use your cruise control in optimal conditions and not in the rain or on wet roads.  

That way your cruise control does not try to accelerate when it doesn’t have any grip on the road surface.  Always pay attention to the road surface in front of you to make sure that the path is clear from debris while using cruise control or driving in general.

Why Should You Use Cruise Control?

When you use cruise control for long road trips or even short highway trips this allows your car to maintain a steady speed instead of accelerating and decelerating constantly. Because you are maintaining a steady speed this allows your engine to not have to work as hard to keep your vehicle moving at a steady speed. This, in turn, allows your vehicle to get more miles per gallon out of that tank of gas which saves you money in the long run.  

With that said there are some people that are in the hyper mile community that can get a higher mile per gallon result if they use the gas pedal themselves.  Hypermilers would get a higher mile per gallon out of their car by only feathering the throttle and allowing their car to coast down hills instead of continuing to apply the accelerator.  

However, most people would benefit by using the cruise control instead of trying to get the best miles per gallon out of their vehicle by themselves because odds are you aren’t a hypermiler and you don’t know the best practices to be able to get the most mileage out of your tank of gas.

Adaptive Cruise Control

One new technology that has recently come out is called adaptive cruise control.  Adaptive cruise control allows your vehicle to lock onto the vehicle in front of you and follow the vehicle in front of you at whatever distance you choose.  

This is nice because you never have to worry about messing with adjusting your cruise control to match the speed of vehicles in front of you, your vehicle will do that for you.  

One thing to note is adaptive cruise control is still going to have the same limitations as normal cruise control in bad weather or on wet roads.  Adaptive cruise control may be able to judge the distances between you and the car in front of you but it still has no way to tell that you are about to hit a slick spot on the road.  That is why you should not use adaptive cruise control in the rain or on icy roads.

My Cruise Control Story

When I was younger I bought a v6 mustang (it was the first car I ever purchased with my own money) that did not have a locking rear differential.  This means that while the car could be powered by either of the rear wheels at any time both wheels don’t turn simultaneously if the wheels could not find any grip.

One time when I was giving my step father’s dad a ride home I was using cruise control on the highway and the road surface was somewhat wet.  As I was driving there were two distinct times where my back wheels lost grip to the surface of the road and started spinning uncontrollably.  

It’s important to note that It wasn’t raining at the time that this happened, the road was just wet from a past rainstorm that had passed through.  This encounter was scary enough that I learned my lesson and no longer drive with cruise control on if the road surface is wet or if there are icy roads.

In Conclusion

Now you should have a better understanding of why you shouldn’t use cruise control in bad weather.  While cruise control systems are used as an aid for drivers to get better miles per gallon while driving they are not intelligent enough to be able to cut power to the drive wheels of your car if you lose traction.  

If you have a four-wheel-drive vehicle or a vehicle with a limited-slip differential this could aid in you losing traction while having cruise control engaged but it’s still best practice to not use your cruise control on wet roads or on icy roads.

You may also be surprised to know that you shouldn’t use cruise control in a brand new car.  The reason may surprise you.  To learn more about why you shouldn’t use cruise control in a brand new car click here.