Threshold breaking, where you stop as hard as you can with out locking up the wheels, is probably better than relying on ABS, but it requires training and pract

Threshold breaking, where you stop as hard as you can with out locking up the wheels, is probably better than relying on ABS, but it requires training and practice, and doesn't enable the per-wheel breaking that modern ABS provides. My parents taught me that ABS is often bad, and that sometimes it actually prevents you from stopping (for example on a hill), but then I sat in a car for a demonstration of the difference: I visited the Consumer Reports test track in college, and among other things they had us all put on helmets, and 3 at a time we rode along in a car they had modified to disable ABS with a switch. They had a section of road setup so that one side is slicker than the other, and they straddled the line between that and the regular pavement for their demonstration. The first run, with ABS on, was a hard, but boring stop where the car leaned forward and came to rest nicely. Then they flipped the switch and did the same thing again. Riding along with ABS off was much more exciting. It meant you got be be in the Subaru as it spun around 3 times at 50mph. I was convinced.