RE: Exclusive: The Wheeler Interview

[TheHobbitsBoss]

Employees - people who work

Hobbits - person who surfs pistonheads

So no lunchbreak

[Guibo]

shpub said:

After 3 or so attempts they managed to miss the cone. Yes ABS helped them and deserved a pat on the back.

And what if they had no ABS? Safe to assume the cones would have been 0-4? And then 0-howeverthedayislong?

Seems to me that ABS (to be taken up voluntarily by the manufacturer, not coerced by gov't) and proper driver education is the best mix. Anyone else disagree?

The efficacy of ABS can be found in studies which collect data for ABS-equipped cars and compare it against those for identical/similar models without ABS. A handful of such studies were carried out through the mid-90's, before non-ABS equipped cars became harder to find. The studies show that overall, accident rates with ABS cars were lower than for their non-ABS counterparts, measured over the same period of time. And there's no reason to think that ABS technology has ever taken a step backward since then.

If it's true that people (even those who have attended trackdays and the like), when faced with a real-world accident situation, are doomed simply to stomp on the brake and, riddled with fear/confusion, plow into an object without their instinct to *avoid* such obstructions kicking in, then there really is no point in having proper driver education that teaches people to avoid objects while braking, now is there? When it comes down to it, we're all simply doomed. So why bother.