Don’t forget the training wheels and water wings.
LOL, how about we just avoid all this silliness by not driving into stuff?
but…but…but… who would protect us from ourselves? 
I say put a seat in front of the grille for the driver to sit on. Having to actually worry about being in a wreck might keep them from doing stupid things
I have a great deal more faith in a responsible and experienced driver than in ABS. The ABS computer won’t look out the window and say “hey, only a fool would drive in THAT,” and throw another log on the fire.
totally agree with you craig , just a couple of weeks ago i was driving to work and the car next to me hit the front car at about 15 MPH the car in front was a suburban and the car that crashes behind was a new elantra the front air bags of the car deploy for what? a fender bender well not even a fender bender just the grille and the fron bumper was damage but what happens here boom the bill to pay easily gets 2K
There are three kinds of drivers.
Some like me might be able to stop a car as safely without ABS under the right conditions, maybe even safer or may not. I prefer to have ABS. I like it best if it never kicks in, meaning I am driving well.
Others can reliable out perform ABS and would be as safe or safer without it.
Most drivers I would place in the third category; those who can’t come close to doing as well as ABS and usually don’t know what it is or how it works. They really do need it.
I would guess most of the regulars here would fall into one of the first two groups.
BTW I should add that a few weeks after obtaining my license I was involved in a 17 car (one truck) accident on the interstate. It cost me two teeth (I was number 17), The first car had a honeymoon couple who died going under the truck. It was a case of black ice. If it had ABS I might have avoided the accident totally.mcparadise.Your seatbelt won’t be of any use to you if you get T-Boned at an intersection. How do you feel about side curtain air-bags and do you think that it would be reasonable for manufacturer’s to install side curtain but not front airbags?
My take on it is that the evolution of what makes up an automobile has always been progressive. ABS brakes were a feature on cars that came at a premium at one point. They were in demand despite the additional cost. How may lives have been saved by airbags? I don’t know but I would imagine the number to be very high. Given the choice of having seatbelt only or seatbelt with airbag in a high impact front crash, I would opt for both. I suspect that if time could be halted a moment before the crash and we had a chance to make that choice … 100% of us would.
ABS is like seat belts and air bags. You need them only once. Your choice, your money or your life. Jack Benny would say, I’m thinking, I’m thinking.
I agree Joseph, plus, the automotive engineers have to design cars for the majority of the population, and that means airbags, abs, traction control, etc are very important. although I would like to see more cars with the option to turn these aids off, my car has the option to turn off the Traction Control which is great, it makes driving in the snow an awful lot easier, but I dont think you can turn these aids off on most cars.
I don’t want ABS. It just makes things more complicated to work on and it gives you one more warning light that can keep a car from passing inspection. Some ABS systems have kept cars from stopping in time.
I’m getting old and set in my ways. I want complete control of the vehicle, including locking up the brakes when I feel it is necessary. Luckily, road conditions are rarely bad here. And I drive sedately while keeping my vehicles in good working order.
I can see that just saying that ABS is good to have may not count for much.
I can say that ABS saved my hide once. I was on a snow packed freeway with tire paths worn almost down to the pavement with raised snow ridges between the tire paths, a condition any northern mid-west US winter driver can relate to. I was changing lanes when an emergency situation occurred so that I had to brake hard. The ABS came into play, helping me a very great if not vital amount to maintain control. That day I was glad that my car had ABS.
Panic stopping distance with ABS may be compromised slightly under ideal conditions such as on a smooth, flat, straight road; a small price to pay when things get difficult under other than ideal conditions.
If an insurance investigator or a lawyer, when assessing fault for an accident where injuries were sustained were to examine you in a court of law, among other questions that could be asked:
- Were you completely sober?
- Did you have adequate rest the night before?
- Did you have your seat belt fastened?
- Were you driving at or under the speed limit?
- Were your tires not worn down to the wear indicator bars?
- Does your car have air bags?
- Does your car have ABS?
Some ABS systems have kept cars from stopping in time.
That is true, but it appears that far more often it has prevented or reduced accident damage and injury.
Na! I’d rather have a sunroof,GPS,Satellite radio and all the other junk rather than something that might save my life,or the lives of the ones i care about.
Well, good for you, grampy. What if I decide to get ABS, too, and don’t have a sunroof and satellite radio and GPS to trade in? Will me and my loved ones die anyway?
Learn to drive …the basis of all functions, LEARN TO DRIVE. All of the babysitting, hand-holding, do-it-for-you-so-you-don’t-even-have-to-think features like ABS and air bags are just excessive junk IF people would ( as airplane pilots do ) really learn the machine ! Learn how it works AND how it doesn’t work. It’s an extremely politicaly incorrect and unpopular idea and would be a massive undertaking but just think “what if” everey driver learned at a performance/defensive school like Bob Bondurant. EVERYONE…AND be required to re-test every two years. The accident rate would be cut in half or more and insurance rates would follow suit. Fully trained motor vehicle operators would also have the inherant logic to not drive distracted ( cell phones, eating etc. ) , drive smoother,slower,and more courteous, less aggressive and more. But of course, who among six million drivers actually wants to have to take a real test when they can just pay the manufacturer to bay sit.
I own, and ride daily, a motorcycle with ABS. It has saved my ass at least once. There was some light rain and apparently some sort of oil on the road I did not see, either before or after the incident. I was going fairly slow and started braking for a stop sign when the ABS on both front and rear kicked in. I stayed upright and stopped a bit long and missed the side of a minivan by a foot or so. Had it not been for the ABS I’d have been on the pavement sliding under that minivan.
No, I wasn’t doing something dumb. Yes, I had good tires. Normally in wet conditions my ABS never kicks in. I had a similar incident 20 or so years earlier on another motorcycle and ended up on the ground, fortunately there was no other traffic that day. No Craig, I’m not going to hang it up and buy a Buick. I don’t car what you think. ABS is a good thing on a motorcycle or a car. In fact I think it’s more useful on a motorcycle.
I found it hilarious too. You’d think there’d be seatbelts on motorcycles before airbags.
YIKES! What a terrible idea. I mean a seatbelt on a motorcycle. I’d much prefer not to have a 500 pound weight strapped to the end of my spine in an accident.
And I suspect the ABS was not the problem.