Mine does that too. I love it - it means it's working. That means I can drive even faster in treacherous conditions.
I like the idea (? on Clarkson) from a few years ago that the best way to improve our driving would be to remove the abs/airbags/seatbelts etc and put a fricking great spike in the middle of the steering wheel. We might pay attention then.
and because I've not seen anyone mention it yet (only skimmed), brake pedal judder when the ABS activates is completely normal, not any indication of a fault.
But yes, ABS is pants on sheet ice and snow, brake smoothly and anticipate and if you start skidding do your own ABS.
If your ABS is working properly, then when you feel you're not stopping it's because you would be skidding all over the place if you didn't have ABS. ABS should stop you from skidding.
And I learned to drive in a Fiesta with no ABS, really thin tyres, crap traction and terrible understeer. I know how to handle these things, but I would still rather not have to. Just because you can feather brakes doesn't make you some kind of infallible ultra hard-man, so stop flattering yourselves.
Didn't formula 1 cars have ABS for a while before they banned it because it was too much of an advantage?
I like the idea (? on Clarkson) from a few years ago that the best way to improve our driving would be to remove the abs/airbags/seatbelts etc and put a fricking great spike in the middle of the steering wheel.
I think you attribute far too much intelligence to Mr Clarkson.
I first heard it mentioned by John Adams in his 1995 book "Risk", where he speculates that if all cars were made from cardboard, fitted with crap brakes, a sharp spike in the steering column and the roads were made of Teflon then there would be no impact on road deaths but a substantial decrease in the efficiency of the transport system.
In other words, the supposed "safety" benefits are actually consumed as performance benefits while the risk remains fairly constant.
Which, incidentally, is basically the same argument as the old risk compensation argument of [i]"helmets make you feel safer so you end up taking greater risks"[/i] 🙂
Had not had ABS come on once in 4 yrs of driving my car:::
I seem to not over drive my vehicles, probably why it shocked me when the ABS did kick in - but it took very bad road conditions, and to put the point across again - I was approaching traffic lights - I let the vehicle slow down way before and only braked as necessary from 10mph, I was totally caught out by the noise, vibration and the fact that the actual stopping distance increased to the point I thought I was going to overshoot the stop line... it was damn scary..
There was a study carried out in Germany with taxi drivers where one set were told that they had ABS, and the others were told that they didn't.
Guess which group had noticeably more accidents?
Details of the accidents please.
