<VV> ABS on a Corvair/What is safe anyway?/Stopping Faster or Slower With ABS

[Joel McGregor]

>From what I've read vehicles on dry or wet pavement stop fastest with the wheels locked up.  Professional drivers attempting to modulate the brakes were unable to out stop the antilock systems.  The only place the antilock systems could stop faster than locked wheels was when the put the vehicle in odd situations like 2 wheels on ice and 2 wheels on dry pavement.

Joel McGregor
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From: hallgrenn at aol.com [hallgrenn at aol.com]
Subject: ABS on a Corvair/What is safe anyway?/Stopping Faster or Slower With ABS

Joel,

I do appreciate the controllability with ABS expecially for my wife and kids.  But the tests I have seen demonstrated that stopping distances varied based on the surfaces (dry pavement, wet pavement, gravel, sand etc.) when ABS on and off tests were done.  Sometimes ABS stopped the car faster (like on dry and wet pavement) and sometimes not (gravel and loose sand). An experienced driver pumping the pedal did better on the loose materials.  Admittedly the tests were about twenty years ago, but I don't believe ABS systems have changed much since then.  Have they?  I wouldn't mind having switchable ABS on my LMs.  Might even look into it when I retire.

Bob

ps  The traction control on our 2010 Malibu does a very good job compared to our earlier FWD cars without it