autox
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: Jeep Liberty Rollover

To: autox@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: Jeep Liberty Rollover
From: Mike Smith <msmith2@columbus.rr.com>
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 23:10:03 -0500
It's all ABS's fault.....

We all know that the default action taken by just about anyone who's gotten 
surprised by the errant car in front of them is to swerve and slam the 
brakes. (call it trail braking on a massive scale...<grin>)

Back in the day, when someone pulled in front of you, and you panicked, the 
wheels just slid. Even if you had swerved to miss them first, the wheels 
just slid once the brakes were crammed.

Nowadays, ABS kicks in and allows the wheels to maintain traction. That 
means not only is the braking more effective, so is the swerving. They 
effectively swerve and get the car up on two, or go over completely. 
Sometimes it takes a swerve and a counter-swerve to whip it around like 
that, but we've all seen it.

ABS not only makes the initial swerve more effective, it makes the 
counter-swerve possible.... Ya can't swerve if the wheels are locked up.....

No doubt it's really a driver-training issue.. If they wouldn't yank the 
wheel and slam the brake pedal it wouldn't roll. However, since we have 
things like ABS, Traction control, and BombBags to protect us from 
ourselves, why should we actually educate anyone?

Mike
CP 58

///          autox@autox.team.net mailing list
///
///  To unsubscribe send a plain text message to majordomo@autox.team.net
///  with nothing in it but
///
///     unsubscribe autox
///
///  or try http://www.team.net/cgi-bin/majorcool
///


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>