My last car lacked ABS, as does my current one. My truck has it, but it doesn't really work because there are gremlins in the braking system. I can only recall 1 time where ABS had actually saved me. I can also say that every car I've had that hasn't had it I've locked the wheels up in a panic situation almost every time. I'm neither for nor against, but as a "driver", I prefer not to have it.
I prefer ABS, in my opinion. I've almost been in multiple collisions because our brakes have locked up. My brother was even in a accident that could have been avoided if the car had ABS. He was riding in his friend's 98' Corolla (which doesn't have ABS, if you didn't know) when the Dodge Dart infront of then stopped at a yellow light, and my brothers friend had no other choice but to slam on his brakes. His brakes ended up locking up and he rear-ended the Dart. The Corolla and Dart were totaled. This could've been avoided if: A) The Corolla had ABS or B) The Dodge Dart's driver was a re**** and stopped at a yellow light. ABS is still a nice feature to have.
Or C) had an increased following distance and were paying attention. Depending on how fast you were going and how closely you were following, ABS would NOT have saved you in that situation.
My 2003 Focus doesn't have ABS. First Vehicle I've owned that DOESN'T have any form of ABS. Even my Ranger had standard rear axle ABS. The Grand Marquis has full ABS. I much prefer the Focus in the snow. It's much more comfortable in my opinion. It might be because I learned without ABS. The ABS doesn't really seem to do that much. You still lose steering when it kicks in on snow. Maybe on dry pavement it is effective but, even then, you need to SLAM the brakes, with all your might, in the Focus to get them to lock.
Who's says they weren't paying attention? My brother said they had AT LEAST three car lengths between each other. Also, their car was weighed down by a lot of cargo.
A good driver must adapt to the given circumstances. If it had cargo + extra passengers it will obviously tale a bit longer to stop. If the cars were both totalled i doubt that ABS would prevent that. Atleast 3 cars lengths is nothing even if it is 5 that is barely enough. If you dont mind me asking do you know what the speed limit was or what speed he was going before he had to stop.
Popped the abs fuse back in on the vic because I figured the snow was out, then promptly came about 2 feet from parking it in the ditch. I'm not saying abs caused it, but it would have been a lot different if I could have locked them up and slide straight. My fault for underestimating the slipperiness of day old, packed snow.
I do agree with you on that, he was going absurdly fast for what he was doing. He was going 60 MPH on the highway, and when his brakes locked up, I'd say it decelerated to about 45 or 50 MPH. ABS still would've slowed it down to at least 30.
I was thinking it would have been a suburban thpe set of traffic lights with limit of about 60kmh, (35 mph) not a highway. Even at 60kmh 3 car lengths is less than 1 second gap add in the reaction time he would have only had about half a second to react.
I'm pretty neutral about ABS, but can say it had saved my ass once. I was heading home from class after grabbing some lunch, was passing by a Wendy's that had an Entrance only opening, which was only big enough for one car to pull in, and literally 4 signs pointing towards the actual exit towards an intersection. I'm driving past, going roughly 35-ish, noticed a long line of cars pulling into Wendy's and didn't pay much attention because it was lunch hour, next thing I know, this lady in a Malibu pulls blindly out in front of me, and I slammed on my brakes, ABS kicked in and saved my ass, but I was still really close to her driver's side door, had my car had no ABS, I would've hit her. It wasn't that I wasn't paying attention and braked sooner, since I literally was, else I already hit her , nor was the fact that I wasn't speeding, since the speed limit was 40mph. She wasn't supposed to exit from that entrance, and due to the car she was blocking, I didn't see her. Nevertheless, she got a solid 5 minutes of my horn blowing at her as she just sat there looking like a dumbass while blocking traffic, and trying to jump the median and merge onto the other side. Apart from the near heart attack, she ruined my lunch.
3 aint actually many. Rule of thumb is allow a 2 second gap. 3 at 60mph? Thats bumper sittingly dangerous.
As far as I know, without ABS, a full slam on the brakes will cause the wheels to lock up. To combat this, you have to do the technique called threshold braking, which is braking to the point where the wheels begin to slip, but not quite locking.
Most of my parents vehicles don't have ABS Except my mums 2011 Outlander. The Civic i'm Learning in doesn't have it. The Camry I think doesn't have ABS. My dad's Courier ute doesn't have it.
