Lane marking in wet weather

[AlanD]

Had occasion to drive into Melbourne's Eastern Suburbs last night into the rain band that passed through.

Dealing with oncoming traffic on 2 lane roads was challenging, especially when many cars had poorly aimed headlamps. Coupled with road markings that look "dirty" during daylight and at night in wet weather become next to invisible.

The difference between older lane marking (Burwood Highway, Ferntree Gully) and newer (Monash Freeway, Narre Warren-Berwick) was pronounced in the heavy rain that occurred from time to time, and in the traffic conditions, with many drivers attempting to maintain the dry weather speed limits on Burwood Highway, close to scary.

On the way home on the Monash the "safe" limit was IMV 80-85 km/h in 100km/H zones owing to the squalls that were happening. I had the car's adaptive cruise control set to 85 km/h with maximum separation distance in operation. In one squall the water volume was so high that I coasted to a lower speed when the ACC shut down owing to a sensor inability to penetrate the rain. I could see OK but the number of brake light glowing ahead of me told me I wasn't the only car slowing down.

Interestingly, I could not discover a method of resetting the "fault" when the rain eased. Appears that it needs an engine shutdown and restart to do this because all was good when I used the car this morning.

Cheers