Pulling 'P' brake in emergency high speeds?

[Boss330]

Originally Posted by Jay-K

hate when the ABS interfere during the braking process, especially during hard braking.. does anyone know how this works?

There are tons of articles on the net about how ABS works, Google and read some of them

ABS only interferes during hard braking. That is as in a braking situation where you are braking more than the friction between road and tires allow for (when the tires loose grip and starts to lock up).

I think you would hate it more if you had no ABS during those situations (on the public roads at least).

Without ABS your tires would lock up, leading to:

1: Less deceleration
2: Loss of control over steering/direction changes. With locked wheels you can turn the steering wheel every which way you want, the car will continue straight ahead, regardless of steering wheel angle.

With ABS you can apply maximum brake force and the tires will NOT lock up, but be at optimum slip (or as close as possible to). Leading to:

1: The highest possible deceleration under the circumstances
2: Still in control over steering/direction changes as the wheels are still rotating. With rotating wheels you can turn the steering wheel and the car will, friction allowing, turn where you want to.

Modern ABS is for 99,99% of drivers not only a safety device (and a major safety device as such), but also a brake performance enhancing device. Meaning you can brake later and still be in control, AND get a shorter braking distance.

[lincvert]

I'd be shocked if my passenger knew how to activate the emergency brake despite my wife driving an X5 for the past 3 years. I still have to make sure the light is on because I can't remember if up activates the brake or down. I doubt that a high stress situation would make this any easier.

[B-1Pilot]

Some other cool features of BMW brakes you may or may not know about:

Brake Standby

Brake Drying

Brake Fade Compensation

Active Hazard Braking

Emergency Stop Assisstant

[Boss330]

Originally Posted by lincvert

I'd be shocked if my passenger knew how to activate the emergency brake despite my wife driving an X5 for the past 3 years. I still have to make sure the light is on because I can't remember if up activates the brake or down. I doubt that a high stress situation would make this any easier.

Be that as it may. I have told my kids how it works, just in case. If they are not able to operate it in an emergency, we are still no worse than we would be without it... And if they actually are able to operate it, we could potentially save our lives!

To me, if one family can save their lives by having this feature, then that is sufficient grounds for having such a safety device

And, at least the BMW uses same logic as the manual handbrake. Up is on, down is off/disengage. Not that hard to remember

[JOHNBMWM5]

Originally Posted by Boss330

Be that as it may. I have told my kids how it works, just in case. If they are not able to operate it in an emergency, we are still no worse than we would be without it... And if they actually are able to operate it, we could potentially save our lives!

To me, if one family can save their lives by having this feature, then that is sufficient grounds for having such a safety device

And, at least the BMW uses same logic as the manual handbrake. Up is on, down is off/disengage. Not that hard to remember

Great info Boss, I have passed this on to the family
A chance of a life saved.

[itsme123]

believe it or not, but most drivers do not press on the brake hard enough to brake at the maxium potential of their braking system. There is hard and there is harder, and the difference is a few feet that can avoid an accident.

[Boss330]

Originally Posted by itsme123

believe it or not, but most drivers do not press on the brake hard enough to brake at the maxium potential of their braking system. There is hard and there is harder, and the difference is a few feet that can avoid an accident.

Correct.

That was especially true of the first gen ABS barkes which had a very noticeable pulsation in the brake pedal during hard "ABS braking". Combined with the noise those systems also made, many drivers literally took their foot off the brake pedal, because they thought something was wrong...

[avlnch]

At M School they show you how to emergency brake. They teach you to press as hard as you can onto the brakes and STEER. That's the advantage of ABS, it allows you to steer the car (if the wheels lock you cannot steer.. thus why ABS is important).

Not everyone has the opportunity to attend. So I would recommend for people to do an emergency braking test in a isolated area whenever you buy a new car. But break-in / bed-in your brakes before you do this. And afterwards allow them to cool down before you park.

When you practice emergency braking, you learn how the car reacts and doing it 2-3 times will teach you what to do and what not to do. Could mean the difference between an accident and avoiding an accident when you need to emergency brake in a real scenario.