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Re: ABS

Ira Eisenstein wrote:

>>Why ABS?  

> I'm sure others can do it, but I can't think of any circumstances where
> if you had not fallen asleep, and you were aware of your surroundings
> (traffic conditions, road conditions, atmospheric conditions) you would
> need to make a PANIC stop.
>
> If you leave sufficient space between the car in front of you and your
> car, there is no reason you should ever have to be so out-of-control
> when stopping that it takes a computer to stop you.  If you are
> tailgating, not ABS or anything else will save you from rear-ending the
> car in front if it stops suddenly.  Your reaction time to press the
> brake wont be fast enough.

[snip]

> The point I am trying to make with all this is that if you pay
> attention to what you are doing, and to the conditions around you, you
> should never be caught by surprise and need something like ABS to save
> your bacon.  If there is black ice on the road, what the h--- are you
> doing driving on it?, or if you have no choice, you should be going
> slowly enough with enough space around you to allow room for a
> coast-to-a-stop if needed.  If it's raining and the road is wet
> (another point many people who responded to me made), maybe you should
> be going a few mph slower????? Then you wouldn't hydroplane, and you
> could stop normally. etc. etc.

If we all drove that way, we wouldn't need seat belts, either. IMHO ABS
is best appreciated when you _think_ conditions are optimal and something
_completely_ unexpected happens. If, however, you're somehow able to
anticipate _all_ the unknowns in your environment, you're a better driver
than most (heck, your'e psychic), and you don't need ABS (or seat belts).
Realistically, most people don't drive that way, and for street use, I
just don't see where ABS and safety are mutually exclusive.

> What I would like is an on/off switch for ABS, so if you want to use
> it, you can, and if you don't want it, you can shut it off.

Here I agree. On my car, all I have to do is put in a defective ABS
relay, and I can "switch" between ABS and no-ABS. A car without ABS
can't do that.

just my 2 1/2 cents worth of non-flaming opinion.

Evan