In the rain, three things decide how safe a drive is: your tyres, the gap between you and the car ahead, and how well you can see through the windscreen. You can check the tyres in thirty seconds before you set off, and two buttons take care of the view. A rental car makes this harder. You do not know it yet, and you will find out how it behaves on a wet road for the first time at exactly the moment it matters.
Wet roads in Israel in 2024: 858 people injured
In 2024, 858 people were injured in accidents on wet or muddy roads in Israel, against 757 in 2023, a rise of 13%. 26 of them were killed, and 111 were seriously injured, up 19%. The figures are from the road-safety organisation Or Yarok, based on Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) data.1
It is not only a motorway problem: 370 of those injured were hurt inside cities. Jerusalem is second on the list of cities, after Haifa, with 36 people injured in 2024, six of them seriously.
What does Israeli law require in winter?
Two rules worth knowing, and both bear directly on driving in the rain.
Headlights on in daylight, from 1 November to 31 March
Under Regulation 97(c) of the Traffic Regulations, from 1 November to 31 March the headlights and the rear lights must be on even in daylight on any non-urban road. This applies to every motor vehicle except motorcycles. Taxis, buses and commercial vehicles with a gross weight over 14,999 kg must do so on every road, urban roads included. Driving without lights in that period is a traffic offence.2
These dates almost match the rainy season, and in the rain daylight alone is not enough for other drivers to see you. On cars with daytime running lights the rear lights are not always lit, so switch on the normal lights yourself and do not rely on what the car does automatically.
What is the minimum tread depth for a tyre?
Under Regulation 322, the depth of the grooves on a pneumatic tyre in contact with the road must be no less than 2 mm. The requirement covers the spare wheel too. A tyre below that limit is not only dangerous, it does not meet the regulations.3
Good The grooves are deep, and the wear bar sits well below the tread surface.
Worn The tread is level with the wear bar. In Israel that is already below the 2 mm minimum.
A legal tyre is not always a safe tyre
Israel's legal limit sits below the point where braking on a wet road starts to suffer.
The British research institute MIRA measured wet-road braking distances at about 80 km/h (roughly 50 mph). With 3 mm of tread the car stopped after 31.7 metres, and with 1.6 mm after 39.5 metres. That is almost eight metres of difference, about two car lengths, in the same car at the same speed.
The tyre maker Continental compared against a new tyre with 8 mm of tread. Wearing down to 3 mm added only 2.2 metres to the braking distance, while wearing down to 1.6 mm added 6.8 metres. Most of the loss comes at the very end of the tyre's life, when it still looks perfectly usable.
The reason is water. The grooves channel it out from under the tyre, and a new tyre clears up to 30 litres per second at 80 km/h. According to Continental, a tyre with 3 mm of tread keeps about 80% of that ability, and one with 1.6 mm keeps just over half. Past a certain point the tyre stops touching the road and rides on a film of water.
How do you check your tyres in thirty seconds?
Small rubber bars are moulded into the bottom of the grooves of every tyre, at several points around the circumference. These are the wear indicators (TWI). When the tread surface is level with a bar, the tyre is worn out.
Here is the detail few people know: those bars are moulded at 1.6 mm, because that is the legal limit in Europe and the UK. In Israel the limit is 2 mm. So a tyre worn down to the height of its wear bars is already below the legal minimum in Israel, not just sitting on it. If the tread is level with the bars inside the groove, do not take that tyre out in the rain, and in a rental car, tell us at the desk before you leave.
Three more quick checks: run the wipers and see whether they clear the glass or smear it, make sure every light comes on, and find the demister (defog) button before you need it. Thirty seconds at the branch beats searching for it on a motorway in the rain.
Slow down early and keep your distance
Even with tyres in reasonable condition, stopping from 80 km/h on a wet road took more than 30 metres in MIRA's measurement. So keep a bigger gap to the car ahead, and slow down early: before a bend and before a junction, not after the car has already started to slide.
Why is the first rain especially dangerous?
Through the dry months, oil, rubber and dust build up on the road. The first rain does not wash them away at once. It mixes them into a thin, slippery film, and only longer rain clears it. If you are used to rain every week, this film may be new to you.
So the extra care does not end after the first storm of the season. Even in midwinter, after a dry spell, the first rain can be slipperier than the rain that follows it.
What do you do if the car starts to aquaplane?
The sign is that the steering suddenly goes light and empty, and the car stops responding to small corrections. What you do: lift your foot off the accelerator, do not brake and do not turn the wheel sharply, and hold it straight until grip returns. Once it does, carry on more slowly. Only if there is an immediate risk of collision, brake.
How do you clear a misted windscreen fastest?
Mist comes from moisture you bring into the car, condensing on cold glass. What works fastest:
- Defrost mode and a strong fan. Point the air at the windscreen, and turn it down once the glass is clear.
- Air conditioning together with heat. The air conditioning dries the air, in winter too. Here its job is to remove moisture, not to cool.
- Outside air, not recirculation. On recirculation you keep cycling the same damp air, and outside air is drier even when it is raining.
In a rental car, thirty seconds at the branch saves a search on the road
In your own car you know how the brakes feel, how worn the tyres are and where every switch is. In a rental you do not, and in the rain you need all of it in the first second, without searching.
So it is worth spending thirty seconds at the branch on three things: look at the tyre grooves, run the wipers once, and find the demister button and the light switch. You can ask us to show you. It is an ordinary question at the desk, and easier to ask there than at the roadside.
New drivers will find the conditions that apply to them on the car rental for new drivers page. You can check availability and pricing for your dates, see our vehicles, and find branch details and opening hours on our branches page.