Hello: Better half had a fender bender in the rain today in her 00 Accord Coupe. After I picked her up we drove by where the wreck was.

She had told me on the phone she went over a hill and two cars were stopped to turn in the road and she skidded/slid into the back of it.

However, when we went to the crash site, the hill was just a gradual slope. I suprisingly asked where she saw the car and when she applied the breaks.

After showing me where she first hit the breaks and informed me she skidded for a good two solid one-mississippi, two-mississippi seconds I asked if her ABS kicked in. After then explaining what ABS was to her she said she heard/felt none of the effects of ABS.

Puzzled I said, either your wheels locked up and you in fact were skidding on the wet road but the ABS would have kicked in, or the breaks didn't work.

She said when she first saw the car she pushed on the breaks and slowed for a second, but then did not slow anymore until impact 2-3 seconds later. She just figured she was sliding on the wet road. She was originally driving maybe 35-40mph before breaking and ended up pushing the one car into the car in front of it hard enough to smash not only her hood but the car in the middle's hood got slighty dented too. The grade she was driving down is maybe 5-10 degrees. This leads me to believe the car did not slow down after the initial slow at all.

Can a car hydroplane at 30mph on a very mild sloped hill?

I just had new tires put on the car maybe 3-4000miles early and just had a new set of break pads put on maybe 2-3 months ago (maybe 2k mile).

Could her breaks of flat out failed? What does break failure even really mean? We told our insurance company and they said they could evaluate if the breaks did indeed fail. What does this mean and how do breaks fail?

Thanks! and does anyone know Big Brother's eye in the sky satelite URL? Would love footage to find out what in the heck happen.