I don’t have a driving licence, and I’m soon going to register for driving lessons 
(Actually I already did so, and paid. But the driving school was owned by crooks who got arrested for an ungodly number of offenses. Before I began to take lessons, but not before they cashed my check )
At least, clairobscur, you live in a city with a decent public transport system. Well, at least it seemed that way to me the one time I visited Paris. 
Here in Dallas, Texas, everything is designed around the car. While it is theoretically possible to get around on public transport, it is a cumbersome process, and one often has to pick ones way along the side of streets that were never designed to have pedestrians. Because of this I always drive to work, even though I only live a bit over a mile away.
Insurance companies and accident investigators read your cars computer after a bad accident. Many vehicles already have the satelite car services that can tell where you are. These services can’t give you help in an emergency or map directions without the abilty to know where you are. They can always determine speed by where you were over a time interval. People that operate cell phones are traceable, as are highway toil speed pass users. They can disable rental cars by satellite, and it’s an option any driver can have installed.
i don’t know, speaking as a technician, i wouldn’t trust any computer-based device being the sole control device in a car, all computers have the potential to fail, and at the worst possible time, there had better be manual overrides, and there’s NO bloody way i’d even sit in a car containing a m$ “CarDows” “operating” system
just imagine your car coming down with spyware (keeps track of where you drive to, then hijacks your destination to a store likely to carry products you “want”), adware (manufacturer broadcasting their latest sales promotions over the stereo at top volume) and viruses, to say nothing of the BSOD actually finally meaning something…
no, you won’t catch me in an “autocar”, manual controls all the way for me, i like to be in control of my multithousand pound projectile capable of unsafe velocities…
Let me extend this a little.
General Motors and its suppliers could not make a reliable alternator if you spotted them a magnet, a coil of wire, four diodes, and a capacitor.
Anyway, if this became mandatory, there’d be one manufacturer that would mount the end of the antenna right next to the ignition coil, and then not shield that side of the coil from electromagnetic interference… their sales would skyrocket.
A terrific (Porsche/Continental Teves) ABS brake system will outbrake Schumacher on a dry or wet perfectly surfaced road. An okay one (most of the systems used on Nissans, Toyotas, Fords, Chryslers, and Volkswagens fall into that category) will outbrake 95+% of the population on a dry or wet perfectly surfaced road. A lousy one (GM or Honda) will beat 90+% of people on a smooth surface.
This means that there are a few people that’ll beat most ABS systems. If you are one you probably know that you are.
On any loose surface (snow, gravel, slush) any idiot’ll beat an ABS system by a mile if the only objective is stopping. The only effective way to stop is to plow up a wedge in front of your tires by locking them up.
On a real road under normal conditions, it’s somewhere in the middle. The vast majority of drivers will stop faster with ABS than without. However, the best 10% will be better off without it.
Wait, so my old-tech, non-retrofittable car would no longer be legal on highways that I paid road tax to use?
Heck, what about classic and antique cars…would they all be stuck in museums?
I’m not too worried though. My state’s DOT is horribly slow; I wouldn’t expect them to be able to implement a system like that in my lifetime.
You mean they see dead people? :eek:
Yep…anybody driving one of those clunkers when the “Sixth Sense” goes blind and crashes…literally.
ChapparalV8 has a great response a few posts below yours …
someone else a highbar fan? =)
That sucks … any way you can get the money back? From when I was in school in Rouen, I remember that the driving lessons were not cheap, nor was the whole licensing process compared to the US … [of course this was back in the 70s …]
All I know is that in the US, the average person learns to drive on a crappy underpowered automatic nowdays.
Back when I was learning to drive, I had 2 different people teaching me to drive as time permitted … my father in a 1873 Chrysler New Yorker Brogham … the largest wheelbase of any unmodified non limousine of the era [talk about being able to parallel park ANYTHING! 
] and a 1976 Ferrari spider. In the years since then I have worked for a truck rental and leasing company, and can drive pretty much anything that doesnt require a CDL to operate=)
[and i will confess that if i won a lottery there are a few cars i would buy or repurchase replacements - an abarth scorpione, a matra-simca bagheera, a jensen FF, a sunbeam tiger, a replacement tvr vixen, and a replacement ferrari spider =) - sprt of like that line from xXx anything fast enough to do something stupid in … how many highbars are left in running ro restorable condition? ]
I’ve always thought this. I drive on snow packed roads a lot. A REAL lot. Gravel too.
I don’t have ABS. Of course my next car will… I think the ABS would be great in most conditions. But some. Ummmm. No thanks.
The first time I encountered ABS I didn’t even know the vehicle had it. I needed to stop on a snow packed road. It felt like the car was shaking itself apart. This was years ago, and I HOPE systems have gotten better.
I see quite the opposite, where you will have your car tally up your fines for the year and you will have to pay those to get your regestration renewed.
Who would buy one?
Let me expand on that a bit.
I’ve been driving since 1976. I’ve had 3 speeding tickets. Never an accident.
One ticket because I was speeding. I came off a road that was 65 mph that changed to 55 mph. I was going 67. I screwed up.
One going about 75 in a 65 with a semi right on my ass. 2 lane highway in a Jeep. My fault, but I was just trying to stay alive and keep up with traffic.
One pulling off a highway onto a 4 lane city street going 45 in a 35. Again, just keeping up with traffic.
What about passing on a 2 lane highway? You often have to exceed the speed limit to do it safely.
Point is, people may speed every day. Even good drivers.
This will never fly.
I’ve talked to cops who run radar and most have told me they allow a little bit of speeding (10% or so) as long as the drivers aren’t driving like they’re in a demolition derby. One said they’d have to hire a couple hundred extra traffic cops just to issue tickets to everyone who speeds.
Of course, if the cars are rigged to narc on you, the computer could issue a ticket in the mail.
I have extensive experience with both Bosch and Teves systems used on Volvos. I would say that the ABS systems on our cars can out brake about 99.9% of the driving population. maybe 99.999%. I have never met a single driver that could out brake our ABS systems. That inculdes race drivers.* A perfectly surfaced road gives an advantage to the driver w/o ABS. A real road (where there is water on the gutter side, potholes, and changing surface) all the advantage is with a good ABS system. I can put the right side wheels in water, and the left side wheels on dry pavement, take my hands off the wheel and jam on the brakes as hard as possible. The car will stop straight. Try that in a non ABS car. A good ABS system can modulate individual brakes 10-15 timees per second. IIRC a top flight race car driver can do about 6-8 times per second tops. And the race driver can’t just modulate one or two wheels, it’s all four or nothing.
With that said, there are differences between ABS systems. Back in 98 we did some track tests between 6 different cars, 3 European, 3 from Japan. The ABS systems on the Japanese cars sucked big time. The car would modulate the brakes, but would not allow for steering corrections during ABS control. The Lexus, Infinity, and the Honda killed a lot of cones that day. The Benz, the BMW and the Volvos did not kill any.
Getting back to the snow/gravel question, yes you will stop somewhat quicker in snow/gravel w/o ABS, but you will have no steering control during the stop. Locked wheels = no steering control. So do you want to be able to steer? Me I will take a slightly longer stopping distance and steering control.
*and they are usually the first to admit it, unless they are egotistical assholes.
Yep, the Teves system will beat Raikkonen… but Rick, I could beat the Chevy system by 25 feet from 60 MPH on dry pavement a year ago. There are pretty huge differences between good and lousy ABS.
The difference on snow and gravel is big enough that if one or two wheels hit dry pavement and the car went sideways I could let off the brakes completely, correct, lock them back up and beat the car with ABS. If I’m braking mid-corner on snow I’m completely screwed anyway so at least I’ll go off at a lower speed with the wheels locked up.
The ABS on a VW Golf MkIV I drove a year ago was absolutely a difference-maker. I could be on the gas for several feet past my normal braking points and the system actually used its 4-wheel modulation capacity to help the car get turned in.