Matthew,
The secret to good braking is to both apply and release the brake pedal
progressively and smoothly. Slamming on the brakes slams the weight of the car
forward onto the front suspension and creates oscillation rendering the front
suspension quite ineffective. If an ABS system doesn't cut braking effort
*before* lock up, you can use it as an indication that you waited too long to
apply the brakes, just as you would lock up. Braking too late is disastrous for
your times with or without ABS. Braking too early hurts a little and is easy to
adjust on the next run.
Rich (my 2cents for free)
On Mon, 24 Mar 2003 16:18:12 -0800 Matthew Rehrer <mrehrer@rehrer.com> wrote:
>All-
>
>This questions may be too generic to answer definitively
>however that just shows how badly I need opinions.
>
>If I have a car with ABS that cannot be disabled is it
>reasonable for me to assume that the car will stop in
>the shortest distance possible if I simply slam on the
>brakes (thereby engaging ABS)?
>
>If this is not so then what sort of penalties are likely
>in this scenario? In other words does a good ABS system
>get within 10-20% of ideal non-assisted braking? How
>about in the wet (where yesterday I had abysmal braking
>most likely due to driver errors)?
>
>Also if engaging the ABS is evil what techniques can be
>used to avoid the dreaded HAL9000 intervention?
>
>Thanks for your thoughts
>
>Matthew
>
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