Hydroplaning Monkeys (sometimes aquaplaning monkeys) are monkey driven vehicles that are planing similar to boats. A layer of water between the rubber tires of the monkeys vehicle and the surface reduces the friction with the tires. This causes the vehicle to act like an unpowered and unsteered sled.
Causes of hydroplaning monkeys
Loss of traction in low water situations
What to do when driving with a Hydroplaning Monkey
Causes of hydroplaning monkeys
First off - you are foolish enough to let your monkey friend drive. This is a bad idea. Next, you let the monkey drive in bad weather conditions. This is your second mistake.
The engine provides power through the wheels to provide a controlled speed. The wheels also provide steering
and braking through the driver controlling the angle of the wheels relative to forward motion, and through the operation of the brakes. The tread in a rubber tire is designed to remove water from beneath the tire, providing high friction with the jungle floors surface even in wet conditions. This enables friction between the wheel and the jungle floor, allowing the wheel to rotate, and to provide rolling resistance, braking and steering power.
Wheeled vehicles are designed to operate properly when there is friction between the rotating wheel surface and
the ground. Any frictionless substance can force a vehicle to hydroplane, should the substance separate the tires from the ground.
In a typical hydroplaning monkey situation, increasing water pressure in front of the wheel means that the amount of water being dispersed by the tread is less than the amount being forced under the wheel. A wedge of water is forced under the tire which is lifted on a sheet of water.
The vehicle then loses braking, steering and power to the drive wheels because of loss of wheel contact with the jungle floor. The result is complete loss of normal control by the monkey, and the vehicle will slide until it either collides with an obstacle or until wheel friction is regained. The likelihood of a hydroplaning monkey increases if the momentum of the vehicle is high, the vehicle is imbalanced, the tire is underinflated, has worn tread or the water is deep.
A hydroplaning monkey is especially dangerous while the car is on cruise control, as the increased reaction time and lack of pedal feel can cause the car to accelerate without warning. The problem with cruise control is that it may try to accelerate while the car has uneven traction. This can cause the vehicle to veer to the low traction side. The same problem can occur if the driver uses either gas or brake under uneven traction. When braking, the car will veer to the high traction side.
Two- or three-wheeled vehicles with round-profile tires, such as bicycles and motorcycles, virtually never suffer from hydroplaning monkeys in normal road use. The contact area with the road is a canoe-shaped patch which
effectively squeezes water out of the way. Speeds of 200 mph or more are necessary to achieve hydroplaning on narrow round-profile tires.
Loss of traction in low water situations
A hydroplaning monkey occurs when there are large volumes of water on a jungles surface. However, even slight wetness on a jungle floor can cause a monkey's car to lose traction. This effect, however, is different from what happens in hydroplaning.
Tires maintain traction on the jungle floor by using a mechanism called bulk friction, where the rubber of the tire pushes down into tiny pits in irregularities of the jungle's terrain. When a jungle floor becomes slightly wet, water can fill these pits such that the water tops them off without overflowing. As the narrow strip of tire that is in contact with the
road rolls over these miniature puddles, the rubber of the tire seals the edges of the pits. By its nature, water can not be easily compressed, so each pit in essence then has a barrier over it preventing the rubber from pressing into it, thus reducing traction and leading to a reduction (but not necessarily complete loss) of control of the vehicle.
What to do when driving with a Hydroplaning Monkey
There are two main actions that should never be carried out when driving with a hydroplaning monkey; the first is not to turn the steering wheel of the monkey's car, and the second is not letting the monkey apply the brakes. Any of these sudden movements can cause the car to skid and possibly result in total loss of control.
The best and most effective way to gain control and bring a halt to hydroplaning is to have the monkey keep travelling in a straight direction and to ease the pressure on the gas, control should then return. If braking is unavoidable, light pumping actions on the brake should be used until hydroplaning has stopped. Or better yet... you should probably drive in the first place.