Wide tires + rain + daily driver = what traction

player1up said
So yesterday and this morning it's raining cats and dogs and my Duster is having huge traction issues. Now this is nothing new but it got me thinking about traction.
Currently it's got /6 pushing 205/60/15 radial T/A's on 15x7 wheels, 7 1/4 rear ( open, obviously )
I've got my eye on a set of the bullitt wheels ( 17x8 ), but this also brings up another issue....If I change to a tire that has a bigger contact patch it would effectively reduce the weight per square inch of tire touching the road, which would be WORSE for traction in the rain...correct??
( I had kind of the same issue on my ranger when I put 31's on it...got really crazy to drive in the rain )

Who is running fairly wide tires on a daily driver? and what kind of traction do you get on wet roads?
I've got to imagine that if my little slant is having trouble putting the power to the road that there's got to be others out there with daily drivers that are just SCARY to drive in the rain.

Weight on tire / weight per square inch is not as important as more surface area / contact area to the highway. I haver seen a posi duster and a truck, both with quite wide / radial street tires do well in rain with proper tread design and depth. Tread design and depth is really important in rain right? Also both did quite well in the snow, that was not full of ice or on top of ice. I suppose at some point, a massive width may contribute to hydroplaning at high speed depending on tread design when the water cannot be ejected from under the tire thru tread channels. How do modern vehicles with 305.35.18s do in the rain.. Quite well. I suggest BFGs all terrain T/As, deep tread!.. kidding.

Here is some info on the subject from the web..

Vertical load on the tires has an effect on the lateral cornering force generated at a given slip angle. In general, cornering force increases as the vertical load increases, but the increase is not proportional to the load. The tire's ability to develop cornering force, in relation to its vertical load, is known as its "cornering coefficient". Tire cornering coefficient declines as vertical load increases. However, the inertial forces of a vehicle in a turn increase in proportion to the increase in weight. Consequently, tires that are more lightly loaded can handle greater g-loads during turns, which is a feature that is especially relevant to the handling characteristics of low mass vehicles. The graph in Figure 2 shows the relationship between vertical load and cornering coefficient (click on the link to retrieve the image). The coefficient is determined by the percentage of rated load that is represented by the actual vertical load imposed on the tire. The graph in Figure 3 provides another way to view the relationship between slip angle, vertical load, and lateral cornering force.

Here is the site..

http://www.rqriley.com/suspensn.htm