ABS on/off switch

[Herb Spitz <hmspitz@domain.elided>]

>Maybe the best situation would be a car with a switch, for turning ABS on
>and off for performance driving.

Agreed.  My 1987 Audi has just such a switch on the dash.....feeling the 
brake pedal massage my foot when one of the wheels locks in snow freaks me 
out....so I generally turn it off in such conditions.  Growing up driving 
in New England winters taught me NEVER to stand on the brake, something ABS 
assumes we do.  The damn systems get confused if you automatically pump the 
pedal, something that is instinctive to me.

Then there's the Lincoln Town Car with "traction control" that almost 
killed me in Denver last winter....I was in a snowstorm near the Federal 
Center, trying to cross the road, and the damn car wouldn't let me spin the 
wheels when I needed to jump across two lanes of fast oncoming traffic in 
an intersection......the system was even cutting down engine speed when I 
needed it most, leaving me stranded in the street!  Another "safety" 
feature (like airbags) that could prove lethal in the right (wrong!) 
circumstances.

Regards,

Herb Spitz
Phoenix, AZ
78 Spider
69 GTV
87 Audi

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