ivn’s post was hilarious and correct.
Even if you were endowed with a superhuman ability to modulate your accelerator and brake on 20 millisecond intervals, you’re vehicle probably isn’t equipped with four independent brake or accelerator controls for each wheel.
You don’t have to be super human to apply threshold braking. I am specifically talking about snow here. Tried it again on my way home tonight. On packed snow, threshold braking is the clear winner. I could feel my vehicle move faster and the stopping distance increase as I move over the threshold and let ABS take over. There is no comparison. None. And as you move over the threshold, even with ABS stearing control diminishes.
I suspect the same is true for dry pavement. But, it’s harder to test. And most if all times that ABS would kick in on dry pavement would be a true panic stop. Snow is different. Threshold braking is much better.
Now, for people that just mash the brakes to the floor in snow and ice, ABS is better. For experienced folks, it’s best to back off just a tad as soon as you hear the chatter.
I turn off my car’s traction control whenever there is even a minimal amount (i.e. one snowflake thick) of snow or ice on the road. All it seems to do is cut power and keep me from getting any traction.
It’s downright dangerous in winter driving.
So how do you explain the reality in the video? Is your gut feeling better than Mr YouTube? If so, it’s in rare company; the driver is Tiff Needell.
Good link. But it does not speak about threshold braking or the limits that VDC has when trying to get moving uphill. The uphill in the Jag looks like horseshit to me. When he was starting from a standing start, no it would not go. But when he hit it at about 10mph, he got up. No shit.:rolleyes: Staged to get the results they wanted. It’s pretty obvious to anyone that drives in this stuff every day.
The lake bed at speed is real. VDC helped. It should. The rest is Bull shit.
As far as the down hill stop at the begining, again bs. Lock up the brakes and yep, you have no control or stopping power. Threshold stopping would again work better than ABS. Been there, do that a lot.
Oh. Re: Tiff Needle
I suspect that I know more about driving on snow and ice than Tiff Needle. After seeing that U-tube, I guarantee it.
Well, I have to admit that you’re pretty much a fucking idiot, eniplA.
Because ABS stands for anti-lock braking system.
You see, not to get too “real-world” about this, but it involves the difference between static and dynamic friction. Threshold braking is a technique where you apply pressure until just the point where your tires lock up, thus maximizing the static friction of the contact patch.
ABS does the exact same thing, except with computers which have much faster reflexes and can control each wheel independently and precisely. See this article by some idiots that know nothing about cars might explain it. I’m sure you won’t read it because, and I’m picturing you here: “I been drivin’ on this gerd-danged snow and ice since my [del]giant cockduster[/del] magical manly mustache grew in when I wuz 8 years old, and for the love of glass packs, I ain’t puttin’ my life into the cold electronic hands of some newfangled robot brakes!”. Bearing that in mind, I present you with a quote:
(Bolding mine, to assist your reading comprehension)
Now, this might be Bull shit (Adopting your odd two-word spelling here), but you know what’s more bullshit? That you and these other hicks think that you’re the third coming of Richard “Christ on Wheels” Petty, and that people like, say, every Formula 1 engineer in the world has decided not to use ABS because it doesn’t work as well.
Note also that this goofy frog bastard has a little bit of experience driving on diverse low traction surfaces. He isn’t allowed to use ABS (or TC), because it works better and reduces the skill needed. Of course, he doesn’t have years of mountain man experience and a flannel shirt and the iron-like grit to “try it himself”.
(Oh yes: whichever gimp was claiming ABS removes your ability to steer: you’re still an ignorant bumpkin or a senior citizen with a serious “good old days” complex.)
Oh, and just because eniplA is going to stroke out the instant he reads my description of threshold braking and jam that reply button, let me change the “where” to “before”. This will prevent us from all having to read some moronic nitpick combined with a histrionic accusation of having no idea what threshold braking is and yet another declaration of superhuman driving abilities.
When I got my first car that had ABS, I had this problem: Approaching a blind intersection, I stopped. I then moved forward enough to see around the obstacle blocking my vision, whereupon I needed to stop again. I was going very slow, and I stomped on the brake. And behold, the ABS…did not stop the car. Instead I sort of glided into the street, which was just what I wanted to avoid.
The other time it happened I was backing out of a parking space (surrounded by SUVs, while my car was kind of low). Back out far enough to see that something’s coming, hit brakes…nothing. Slide into range of oncoming car.
My husband had the same problem with the car. However, after about a week, we no longer had the problem because I guess we adapted our driving habits, but there was a difference.
If you’re going under 5 mph and you stomp on the brakes the car is supposed to stop. Instantly. It didn’t. That was something we had to adapt to.
Threshold braking is what a driver can do to get to that sweet spot between static and dynamic braking. At least on slick surfaces, threshold braking will stop you faster than the ABS system.
With ABS on snow it’s very easy to get to that threshold. Nothing superhuman about it. Just as soon as the system kicks in, back off just a touch and you will stop faster. Do it nearly every day. And with this thread in mind, I specifically did it on purpose yesterday. I slowly applied the brakes with more and more force until ABS kicked in. As soon as ABS kicked in my stopping distance increased. Read the thread Ivn.
In a panic situation, finding that sweet spot can be difficult for even the best of drivers, but in controlled planned stops, it’s not that big of a deal.
Hicks, eh? Nowhere did I say I was some sort of superhuman driver. That you have to result to such characterizations and insults says a great deal about you.
I love that you are pleading with me to read the thread.
Let’s point out your mistakes here:
ABS = the computer doing threshold braking.
ABS does it better than you.
There is no “in between” static and dynamic friction.
I realize you have tried this yourself and ABS works worse while you are driving.
Re: #5, I think you either have a broken ABS system, or you have no idea what your car is actually doing. Either way, I just don’t believe you, because the idea is patently ridiculous and you haven’t inspired me with your understanding of how ABS works despite multiple cites and links explaining it.
6: I’ve actually used threshold braking in races, and I have used it in a non-ABS equipped truck on ice, snow, gravel, etc, and I have driven the same car, on a track, with ABS on and off. My current car has ABS and I’ve also taken the time to go out and slide around in parking lots, etc.
ABS is better than me at braking. It’s better than anyone at braking. It’s even better than you.
ETA: by the way, the approved braking technique, in auto racing series that allow ABS, is this: When you reach a marker and need to brake, stomp the brakes and let the system slow you down, then release and corner. This is because ABS does threshold braking for you, and is better at it. End.
You know how you drive - you don’t know how anyone else drives. Therefore, you cannot know that ABS is better than anyone at braking and since just about every decent driver who is forced to drive on snow finds ABS less than effective, it appears that it is true that ABS is not as good as a good driver on ice and snow.
Wow, that might be convincing if I weren’t picturing you screaming at some kids in between posting 80-page rants about how breeders are forcing you to join the Mormon church or some other copiously ignorant position.
And I am just curious, but do you include the FIA / WRCC drivers in the category of “decent drivers who are forced to drive on snow”? The reason I ask is because you seem to be completely, utterly ignorant of even the basics of how driving works and you’re taking some tard on the internet’s word about how they are the best driver evar over sources like “Car and Driver Magazine”, every premier racing series in the world, the Fifth Gear host who drove in Formula One, and basic goddamn sense.
This is the problem with America, the internet, and people in general. You are the automobile equivalent of the teeming masses of mouthbreathers who ignore all evidence and logical reasoning in favor of their own biased and uninformed “experience”. You are the kind of pathetic douchetard who refuses to vaccinate your children (that is, if you weren’t a bitter spinster filled with rage at people with a working uterus), believes that Jesus made dinosaurs to trick all of us, believes that magnets will heal the cancer you got from flouride in the drinking water, and holds a host of other utterly inane beliefs based only upon your need to validate your pathetic unremarked-upon existence.
In short, you have no fucking idea what you are talking about, and there is nothing relative or relevant about how different people drive. What is relevant is that computers are faster and better than you and every other goddamn person on the planet, including the world’s best drivers as proven in competition with multi-millions of dollars at stake, and every single one of those people understands that computer aids make them better drivers. That’s a lot more convincing than “I, like, live in Colorado, man.”
But hey, no one is stopping you from being a compulsive ignoramus. We’d just prefer that you keep your uninformed and unsupported retardisms to yourself instead of attempting to make everyone else dumber just so you have more company at the bottom end of the intelligence bell curve (or the top end of the fucking nuts curve; your call).
Snerk. Instead of addressing the subject, you make up shit about some other thread. Yeah, that really supports your position.
I have no idea what FIA/WRCC is, which I suppose was the point.
Unlike most of the population, I take no one’s word on anything. My opinion comes from 35+ years of driving all over the west coast, which includes living up on the Canadian border for quite some time. I have a lot of driving on snow and ice under my belt. Do you, or any of your references?
Explain please how the opinion of someone that drives in Formula freaking One has anything to do with driving on snow and ice?
Actually, you seem to be the problem with America - people who think that their experience trumps all, even the experiences of those who have actually done what is under discussion. Have you even driven 10 miles on unplowed roads? Car and Driver and Formula One drivers are not driving hundreds of miles on snow and ice - people in this thread are. You need to learn to believe the opinion of experience.
You are reaching. I’ve been married twice and had a “working uterus” (much to my dismay) until about a year ago. I’m not sure I believe in Jesus, but I do know that he and dinosaurs didn’t co-exist, I don’t believe in magnets and I have no opinion on fluoride and cancer. I personally don’t care if my existence is unremarked-upon, but it certainly isn’t pathetic. Proof of this can be seen in the fact that it isn’t me who flies into a frenzy and throws mud simply because someone dared to disagree with me.
Huh. Did I miss a cite where you showed that someone did a study on the use of ABS and non-ABS in snow and/or ice?
“We” who? It doesn’t appear that your opinion is greatly supported here. If you want to believe that a computer program is better than a human response in every possible situation, that is your right. However, that doesn’t make it a fact.
Not quite. ABS is computerized cadence braking, which is different than threshold braking. In cadence braking you get to the lock point and release over and over again. With threshold braking, you try to stay right under when the wheels start to lock up, but are slightly slipping.
Only in first gen systems. Since about 1995, an ABS keeps track of the point where the tire locks and releases a bit, keeping it maximized depending on the torque on the tire. Thus it adjusts to the minute differences in traction between each reading and keeps it as close to the lock point as possible. It works on the same principle as TC systems, and it modulates each brake, memorizing the lock point and keeping the pressure just under unless it detects a loss or gain in traction. It’s not just a simple on-off-on-off like the first systems in the 70s were.
Ah, I did not know that. Carry on, then.
It should also be noted that many of the top brands now offer progressive traction control systems, many with two or more settings.
Some of these (most?) systems allow some wheelspin, but will rein it in if it becomes too much.
Once again, ABS is not threshold braking. I also have been looking at a lot of sites. They compare threshold braking to ABS. ABS <> threshold braking. At those sites they speak about ABS being used because threshold braking can be difficult.
Though as I said, it’s not difficult in snow. It’s very, very easy to practice this. As soon as the ABS kicks in, let off the brakes a little. You will slow down quicker.
There is nothing wrong with my ABS. I get the same response from my Wife’s vehicle. A different year and manufacturer. Other vehicles too.
I can tell exactly what my car is doing, and tried it again last night. Apply brakes and the front of the nose dips down and I can feel the slight g force. As I add more pressure and ABS is activated the nose of the car picks up a little and I feel less g force. Oh, ABS works pretty damn well, just not as well as keeping it right on the threshold. I thought everyone knew that. Basically, ABS kicks in when as a driver, you have failed at your job.
Winters here lasts 6 months. I drive 50 miles a day on snow packed roads. I’m not trying to brag or come off as some sort of mountain man, and I don’t appreciate your disparaging remarks. I share this information because I believe my experience in this regard has relevance.
In snow, ABS is not better than threshold braking. You are wrong in this regard Ivan. It’s as simple as that.
Yes, well pardon me if I don’t believe you because you obviously can’t grasp the concept, or the physics behind it.