\: even the crudest ABS pumps 5-10 times faster than I could manually. On an icy road, downshift gently and let the engine slow you down, then if necessary punch those ABS brakes and hold 'em. Your job is to steer ... toward the curb where the road is less polished; or straight into the snow-filled ditch; just don't hit another car or a whole 'nother bunch of ugly kicks in.
Yup, basic ABS kicks the pedal. But the bottom line is: ABS works.
Actually it doesn't pump, it attempts to threshold brake but modulating the valves and therefore the pressure on the brake pads.
I find most ABS systems to be too sensitive, they will release the pressure too quickly or as someone said any time one wheel slips slightly. Of course if they put more delay into their engagement then their reaction time is less than that of a human so its a difficult balance bewteen the two.
With a lot of modern city streets having large dividers or curbs there isn't any place to steer either so some situations your better off letting the wheels lock and piling up anything they can dig loose in front of them. Thats the fundamantal problem with systems like ABS, traction control, etc they are all reactive to the limited number of inputs they have, can;t see the road ahead or determine if they shouldn't engage in the current situation. IMHO stricter driving tests would be much better.
Previous Topic
Index
