It’s not my neighbors I was referring to. I was thinking of all the folks who post videos on YouTube.
I see your point
But just because some yahoo posts on YouTube, doesn’t necessarily mean he represents the majority of folks out there
For 100 years cars had no ABS and most of us managed to survive. Neither of my cars has ABS and I still drive around safely enough, at least up 'til now. It’s probably illegal to disable ABS if it came installed new, but if the fuse “accidentally” failed, at least you’d have plausible deniability. If you wired in a bypass switch, not so much. Suggest to either live w/it, or at least maintain plausible deniability.
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I really have no idea who has a camera or not. I suspect not many around here do except maybe the younger set that wants everything electronic.
There is ice and there is ice. The slipperiest ice is pure ice with no salt or sand and just at or just below 32 degrees.
The co-efficient of friction is so low that if you are going the slightest bit downhill you will not stop at all. Your only hope is to steer lightly and smoothly to the shoulder to find dirt,gravel or a crust of snow for traction.
At -25 and below ice gives you a lot of traction if you don’t drive so roughly that the friction creates a film of water between your tires and the ice.
The only snow that I claimed gave longer stopping distances with ABS was fresh fallen snow. I made no mention of it being deep. If snow is deep enough you won’t have any trouble stopping because you will not be able to move.
With good winter lug Michelin tires a full screw tractor with axle interlock and a good heavy load, I have had to drive by moonlight because the snow was flowing over the headlights.
Lived in ND, too cold for salt to work, a little sand was all, packed snow and sand and 2wd f100 pickup did just fine, with a block heater of course for cold weather starts. Now I am not saying I don’t love the on demand 4wd in snow and slush in warmer parts of the country, But made it the other 40 or so years with regular tires and 2wd. Sure some slow starts but it is sad the ability to deal with difficult situations as we did growing up, now result in pixxxn and moaning and lawsuits.
Iconic lawsut, parent sends kid off on schoolbus, in the winter, school bus bus breaks down kid has no winter clothes on, get a brain people!
So are you going to disable your seat belts, since for most of that 100 yrs cars did not have seat belts!
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I’ve had different experiences with different cars and different conditions. On with early '90’s Mercury Sables my employer had ABS provided both good stopping distance and control on both on dry and wet roads while on our 940 Volvo I had several experiences where I would be stopping well on a dry surface until the ABS kicked in and suddenly found myself almost rear ending the car ahead - when that happened it was better to pump the brakes if ABS engaged. However the Volvo’s system was effective for maintaining control - when going down hill on a black ice covered road where stopping was almost out of the question with or without ABS I kept the pedal down and was able to steer around a stopped car ahead of me.
The thing I really dont like about the ABS ,is the intermittent problem where you actually have some good traction,but the patches that would give you enough traction to stop safely are ignored and you go stuttering through the intended stopping point .All in all its a good average system ,but like anything else,there are exceptions.Non ABS works fine for the average conditions around here ,most people crash when its slick because of too much speed on the curves,Inattention causes a lot of problems on the intersections,I have seen more then one instance where all the "antilock " in the world not have prevented the crash .
Oh by the way ,I am curious ,does NASCAR use ABS technology?I think the solution to some of our woes are lower speeds and better driver training .
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No, NASCAR does not use ABS. Formula 1 and Indycars do not either.
Other race series do, however, allow ABS. some allow traction control. The IMSA GT3 class allows ABS, GTD, PC, and Prototype do not. World Challenge GT, GTS and TC classes do allow ABS, GT Cup does not. World Touring Cars do allow ABS in British, German and Japanese variants.
And these are usually race tuned units like this;
http://www.bosch-motorsport.com/en/de/ueber_uns/leistungsangebot/systemkompetenz/absm4paket/absm4paket_1.html#
The data being stored in most new cars now will enable extremely accurate accident reconstruction twenty years from now for most accidents even without cameras… which might also be integrated in the average car in twenty years. Backup cameras are already becoming ubiquitous. Good or bad? IMHO good, but I can see where many might disagree. In one sense it IS an invasion of our privacy. 
No plans here to conflate seat belts with ABS. That’s a horse of a different color, eh?
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Speaking of back up cameras, one thing I would like is a button to push to be able to activate the camera while you are driving, not just when in reverse. Having pulled the trailer 1600 miles last week, I couldn’t see the thing at all in back of me. A flick of the camera once in a while would have been nice to see how the load was riding, lights on and so on. I was having trouble with the new lighting connector that was too loose and sometimes the lights would flicker. The only way I could see the lights was with a sharp turn or stopping and getting out to check. They’re fixed now but still it would be nice to just flick the switch to get a rear view.
@bing What size trailer do you pull? I will not pull anything that I can not see thru my side mirrors
http://www.fujitsu.com/us/products/devices/semiconductor/gdc/products/omni.html
The Fujitsu 360° Wrap-Around Video Imaging Technology aids vehicle safety by providing visual assistance to the driver. The true 360° three-dimensional view enhances visibility while drivers are backing up or turning corners, and eliminates “blind spots” to a degree that cannot be matched by two-dimensional technologies.
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Its just a little 4X8. Too low to see out the back window and too narrow to see with the mirrors unless turning. I’ll manage. don’t do much hauling anymore and just a few miles usually.
@bing I know how that goes at one time I had a s &mall popup camper that I could not see thru the mirrors & barley see the top over the taigate.I added some angle iron across the frame with some lights wide enough to see thru the mirrors.pulled it from fla to Canada & back with no problem.
Who said “majority?” Certainly not me.
That is something I did not know. All the dashcams I have seen were cheap little cameras and nothing more. Certainly, a GPS enabled one would have a better chance of being accurate enough to be used.
I’d be surprised beyond belief if any of the non-GPS enabled ones were accurate enough on frame rate to be relied upon for the brief period captured prior to a crash to derive speed with any reasonable accuracy. Not to mention they are dash mounted so this idea someone mentioned about them being used to measure the cars length against the objects it is passing etc would be a real stretch. A stationary,objective camera, maybe. But the dash cam is in the car of interest and seeing mainly the hood and surrounding area only in front of the car. Anything other than a pinhole would distort the view slightly as well and I’ve sen a few with almost fisheye lenses on them to maximize their field of vision. After all, they are mainly to capture the sequence of events, not re-creation of physics involved in the crash.
Black boxes are also not a guarantee. I’ve been in a significant crash where no airbags deployed. Significant in the monetary loss sense. I’m reasonably sure the frame data grab didn’t get triggered if the crash wasn’t severe enough to trigger the onboard systems to react.
ABS isn’t all about reducing stopping distance. It’s supposed to keep the wheels from locking to allow the driver to STEER. When the front tires lock up in a panic stop any steering input will be in vain, an under-steer condition is created and the vehicle will continue to travel in a straight line (Happened to me a couple of times). Proper braking with ABS is to apply full pressure to the brake pedal and steer to avoid collision. Not just my $.02, this is from the NHTSA:
" If you have steering control, it is possible to avoid a crash by steering around hazards if a complete stop cannot be accomplished in time."
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