If your car starts hydroplaning, you should
- ease off the gas and drive straight ✓
- brake gently
- immediately steer to the side of the road
- brake hard
Answer: A. ease off the gas and drive straight
If your car starts hydroplaning, ease off the gas and keep driving straight while you let the tires regain contact, so the answer is easing off the accelerator and driving straight.
Why this is the answer
The handbook's emergency chapters handle loss of grip the same way: in a skid, come off the accelerator and steer smoothly where you want to go, and it says plainly not to brake because braking makes things worse. The tire blowout section repeats it, warning that sudden braking risks losing steering control and that you ease off the accelerator and slow down gradually. Holding the car straight and just lifting off the gas keeps the car settled until the tires grip again. Hydroplaning itself is not described in these pages, but the same approach follows from them.
Why the other answers are wrong
- B. brake gently — The skid instructions say not to brake at all, and the blowout guidance only allows light braking once the car has already slowed down, so braking is not the first response.
- C. immediately steer to the side of the road — Steering off to the side means a sharp change of direction while the tires have little grip, which is the kind of sudden steering input these passages warn against.
- D. brake hard — Hard braking is the opposite of what the handbook says to do when grip is lost, since it can make the situation worse and cost you steering control.
Remember it
When grip disappears, so should your foot off the gas: hands steady, no sharp turns, no sudden brake.