23/07/2025
Normally your vehicleโs tyres make full contact with a road, but wet weather can cause your tyres to lose grip and make you unable to steer or brake. This is called aquaplaning.
The tread on your tyre moves water on the road. However, in heavy rain or when thereโs standing water, there may be too much water for your tyre to move. When this happens, your tyre loses contact with the road and your vehicle will skid across the surface of the water.
If youโre travelling through a patch of standing water, or if you feel your vehicle starting to skid, avoid braking, stop accelerating, and keep your steering wheel straight and steady until you feel a normal level of contact with the road.
You should regularly check your tyres to make sure you have plenty of tread. The minimum legal depth is 1.5 millimetres, but your tyres move water more easily with more tread, youโll have more grip, and overall youโll be safer.
If you regularly use cruise control, turn it off in bad weather. Cruise control can cause your wheels to spin if your vehicle begins to aquaplane, and that can lead to an even more dangerous skid than youโd otherwise have.
When the weather is bad, always check our pages to see if state highways are affected before you travel. Our priority is your safety โ we may close state highways if conditions make it unsafe for travel. You can find more information in this post: https://www.facebook.com/nztransportagency/posts/pfbid0FSzkpU3WTJ7YDcNHKQGD6KjfbxEqSWQgvezDsHB8VZgoxtTMTmS6j5erpU55NPRzl
Visit our website for more information about driving during winter: https://www.nzta.govt.nz/winter-driving/