Meh, maybe on some cars but my car is acting normally on snow. The ABS isn't that agressive on my car anyway, so it doesn't even engage on normal braking, and it might let the wheels lock up a bit before it kicks in.
I DO NOT like ABS under any circumstances, I never liked it, but the final nail in it's coffin was when it wouldn't let me slow down when I was headed for a 200 FT drop off, I was on dirt and I started pumping the brakes, but I could feel them grabbing at letting go again, which wasn't slowing me down a huge amount. I stopped about 6 ft from the edge. The ABS on the Dodge trucks doesnt seem as a "aggressive" as it does on the Chevy's, but I don't trust it on any vehicle.
to be fair, thats pretty much gonna have the exact same result as if you had ABS in snow. Main method used in electronic ABS systems that have been used for decades now, is not fancy. We'll assume a single channel system from say an old 80s pickup that only had it on the rear axle. Not very fancy. What you will have is a speed sensor on the rear wheel inputting to the ABS controller. The ABS as an output will have a solenoid which can reduce the brake pressure to the rear wheels only. What the controller does is look at the speed sensor say 10 times per second. It keeps a log of the last few sensor readings. It can look and see you were doing 90mph 1 second ago and 80mph now, therefore you're decelerating at 10mph per second. It then simply has a big chart it can look at that says "nah from 90mph its impossible to decelerate at more than 8mph/s". If you've exceeded that deceleration value, well the sensor can only read what the wheel is doing not what the truck is actually doing, the actual cause of this happening? The wheel has locked. Therefore you exceed the value saved in the computers massive table and the computer knows you've locked the wheels so will release brake pressure. This is a system that hasnt really changed since. Only real difference is that if you buy a high end german saloon rather than an old 80s american pickup, instead of 1 sensor on the back differential and 1 solenoid that reduces pressure to both back wheels at once. You have a solenoid and sensor per wheel so can monitor each wheel individually. Mostly a case of if it aint broke, dont fix it. These systems and the math behind making the lookup tables have alot of development time into it. There are better ways to do it. Ways that can account for a *huge* shortcoming of current systems. Simplest one is throw an accelerometer on the vehicle instead of using a lookup table. When ABS first came about, accelerometers were big impractical, expensive and not very reliable. Now, a modern MEMS accelerometer costs a few pennies, is smaller than a fingernail and very reliable.What does this solve? Instead of just comparing the rate the wheel is decelerating at against a giant list that says what deceleration is impossible to achieve, you can actually sense how fast the body of the vehicle is decelerating, if the wheel is decelerating faster then its locked. But so much development time has gone into developing the old systems reliably that nobody has switched. But an accelerometer system would solve 2 major problems. #1. What happens if I change the tyres on my car. The values the ABS system claims are impossible to achieve are now wrong. #2. What happens when I change what surface I am driving on. The car doesnt know if I am on dry tarmac, wet tarmac, ice, dirt or whatever. Most ABS systems are programmed for damp (not soaked) asphalt as an acceptable middle ground for dry asphalt and soaked asphalt. Any other surface and the table of values it has in memory is completely wrong. You often see offroaders disabling their ABS as it apparently messes with their performance. Its not the actual technology of ABS thats messing with them, its the fact that its not setup for their surface thats messing with them. Snow ultimately fucks with things and ABS will not prevent a wheel locking in snow effectively. --- Post updated --- I may or may not have read a few whitepapers on how ABS systems work recently as I am actually intending to build one for an RC truck. --- Post updated --- Theres a handful of alternate systems too. But that seems to be the dominant one. Theres a few that can actually respond to vibrations in the chassis and some using *limited* inertial measurement in a similar way to an accelerometer.
Your average driver in an average situation is much better off having abs than not having it. you give the general public much more credit than i do.
The system itself can be as complicated or simple as they want, it's the principle that I don't like, and I think It's because I'm used to older vehicles and was taught to drive with older vehicles, I know that if I put the brakes to the floor the wheels will lock up, so if your in a situation where you need to stop immediately, you don't slam it to the floor, feather it. It all comes back to the fact that I think cars are getting smarter and people are getting dumber, no more manual transmissions, everything has ABS, electronic steering, fly by wire. I'd like to see anyone from about 70% of the general population drive a early 50's one ton truck, one barrel carb, manual choke, manual steering, manual brakes, non-synchronized trans, their head would explode.
I heard that Electronic Stability Control was the result of ABS systems becoming increasingly advanced.
I agree with this. People these days have so little driving skills or finesse that it is being up for with a shit ton of safety features and crash protection. That was the reason i bought the car that i have. Manual, no tcs, abs or sc, it has aircon and power steering but i would have preferred to be a non power steering model. The only thing i think that i would struggle with in driving a 50's truck like you have mentioned would be the non synchro gearbox but that is because I dont get enough practice and havent had much time driving by myself to learn.
ABS isn't gonna keep a 90 year old from driving the wrong way down a highway. There have always been bad drivers, it's just that now there's a lot less deaths. These advancements are good. That said, my car has none of that stuff and I love it. Not even ABS.
ABS is also not going to stop that same driver from going through someone living room because they accidently pressed the "wrong pedal". Every week you hear of some old person driving into a persons house or the front of a shop. The lower amount of road deaths would be from car safety improvements such as airbags, crumple zones and others features not necessarily driving aids like ABS or traction control. Where i live, no matter what driving aids you have, if you misjudge or corner in slippery conditions or hit some black ice in the middle of winter, you're f*****. About your 90 year old situation, I was talking about driving and not the faults of "bad drivers".
On dry pavement abs is fine and great. On wet pavement it can be kind of annoying, but I still think it's a good thing to have. On any loose or slippery surface or during any strange maneuver, though, it's useless. I almost plowed into a stop sign because abs shit the bed mid-botched rockford and wouldn't let me stop. I haven't really been screwed over by abs on dirt or anything, but it has gotten in the way of slowing down a time or two.
It sounds like your second post explained your problem in the first post. If you had pushed the pedal to the floor and held it instead of pumping, you probably would have stopped sooner. Overall, I think ABS is fine, but a skilled driver can still stop faster without it. The ABS in pretty much anything built before 2000 is utterly useless, though.
You weren't the one being pushed down a rather steep hill by a 1000 gallon fuel wagon. Your thoughts would have consisted of "Slow down, Need to stop, cliff ahead" not, "This truck has ABS, I should go against everything I know and put the pedal to the floor, the wheels wont lock up and turn me sideways.
