On Tue, Feb 24, 2004 at 09:11:10AM -0500, Mike Dresser wrote: > On Mon, 23 Feb 2004, Pigeon wrote: > > > It's a long time since I took my car test, and I had no problems with > > the emergency stop, but the examiner's instructions were "...without > > locking the wheels", so I'd guess any kind of lock would be a fail. > > Dunno what they do now that ABS is common. > > Does sound like your driving tests are much better than ours. I still > don't understand how anyone can actually _fail_ one over here, but people > occasionally do.
Probably to do with the crowded conditions on UK roads... with something like a quarter of the US's population crammed into the area of one of the smaller states, most people of an age to drive a car own one, and an increasing tendency to use the car for any journey at all no matter how short, the test needs to be tough. And there are still plenty of dickheads on the roads... I think it was Bill Bryson who wrote that "Most American drivers are crap, and they know it; most British drivers are crap, but they don't know it". > > To be expected. Most ABSes cut out at very low speeds. > > The Chevy Cavaliers of around 2001-2002 were the other way, and hyper > sensitive. I've seen the ABS come on at 5kph at the end of a stop, > completely removing any braking power, causing you to not be able to stop > in time. And those can't be disabled, unlike most cars with traction > control. I'd consider it a safety hazard. So would I... that's the problem for which having the ABS cut out at low speeds was the workaround. I'm surprised it was still going on as late as 2001-2002. -- Pigeon Be kind to pigeons Get my GPG key here: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x21C61F7F
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