January11
Drivers increasingly take for granted the technologies that keep their car under control in dangerous situations, according to a new study. Fewer than 30 of those questioned in a recent survey knew what anti-lock brakes were, and less than 5 percent understood traction control. To test some skills of the average driver, the U.K.’s Times newspaper brought along a 15-year-old BMW 3-series devoid of every modern safety feature and asked some regular drivers to take it through the test track at the Graham Griffiths of Ultimate Car Control training school. While all the drivers were able to drive their modern Volvos, Hondas, and Subarus successfully in all conditions, they failed when forced to drive the classic car. “Even these self-confessed petrolheads were unable to control their cars without the aid of ABS.” And without traction control, many of the drivers “swung about wildly,” heading into 360-degree spins.
Good test.
I always think that all this stabilitrac nonsense creates a false sense of security among consumers ( eps. in SUVs ). These things are guaranteed to bite back one pushed too hard. And seeing how some people drive their SUVs it will happen sooner or later.
I learned to drive in a 1963 Dodge Dart, and I commuted in Los Angeles for years in a 1966 Ford Fairlane. Where do I sign up to drive that lovely Beemer?
I currently commute in a ‘69 Camaro where power assisted brakes means putting both feet on the pedal and pushing harder.
I’m all for these modern doohickeys if it keeps everyone on the road
My previous vehicle was a 1993 ford explorer. it did have the abs breaks but they only put them on the rear wheels. at around 130,000 miles the abs sensor finally died so that after 2 or 3 minutes the abs would go out and i would have normal braking. I prefered this over the abs breaks in the rear only. at the time i was living in michigan and in bad conditions having all 4 wheels braking in the same manner was much better than having the front wheels behaving differently from the rear.
[...] Article here. [...]
Nice choice of article pictures! The car featured above is almost certainly a 1975-1980 Volvo 240 (242) GT, a car that would fit the criteria mentioned by the reporter.
The car is most definitely a high-quality work with many features that wouldn’t be implemented in other cars for several more years–things like disc brakes all around–but it was simply produced before things like antilock brakes and traction control were made standard (or even available) on cars.
ABS certainly isn’t a catch-all for bad drivers, either–on gravel or snow the braking distances can easily be longer than non-ABS cars. Traction control changes the behavior of the car at the limits. I would trust a system from a company that makes well-tuned cars (i.e., BMW or Mercedes), but it’s not exactly like you see the same consumer TC systems on touring cars. A good driver will almost certainly be able to drive faster and safer than a bad driver with “safety” systems like those named above.
My car is an ‘87 and I don’t have ABS or Traction Control. I really don’t see any need for them. This seems to be a UK site so I’ll mention that it’s a Ford Sierra or, as its known in the States, a Merkur XR4Ti. If you can’t drive without computer help, you shouldn’t be on the road…period.
Are you kidding me?
Subaru - All Wheel Drive
Honda - Front Wheel Drive
Volvo - Either Of The Above
If anything, this newspaper article shows that regular drivers don’t know how to steer a rear wheel drive car around corners.
What a joke.
Sum Guy’s on the mark and what is most interesting is how blithely the writer denigrates the four guinea pigs for not being familiar with a car they do not drive and devoid of systems to which they are accustomed . If Griffiths truly was shocked by these revelations, well, I suspect he has a rotor loose or needs to scrape his points.
It’s obvious by the end of first paragraph that the writer’s interest is a style pot stirring Pulitzer daydreams are made of: who, after all, would write that drivers take for granted the benefits of having a spiffy back and head rest on the driver’s seat.
All this story does is make me daydream of the main and backup electrical system failure at the Times and picture the frenzied technology-take-for-granters scurrying about at a loss for how to get the news out.
With that, I’ll tell you now I won’t be shocked from overhearing “What’s an Underwood?” and “Can someone please tell me how to type a second line of text on this infernal machine?”
Ah ha! I always knew driving a heap would save me!
Before getting your license here in Norway, you’re required to spend a day together with your instructor at a facility that simulates winter/ice conditions. You drive the instructor car, the one you’ve gotten used to while taking lessons. And all electronic helpers are turned off - we had to pull the fuse for the ABS in the ‘99 BMW 520 I was driving. It didn’t have ESP or TC.
In this facility you learn how the car handles braking on stretches and in turns, how to avoid obstacles (while turning as well as driving straight ahead). You learn how to brake (pumping), and usually you get to take handbrake skids, turns and other fun maneuvers in ca 60 Km/h just to see how the car behaves.
I think this helps build skill, however there’s a problem as I see it - the incompatibie driving techniques for FF and FR cars. If you learn to handle an FR car, the moment you start losing control of an FF car you’ll be lost since you don’t know what to do.
In any case, I think people have a responsibility to learn the “quirks” of the car they’re driving. Many people don’t even know if the car is an FR of FF car! How lame is that?
Car drivers dependent on technology
In this post, I wrote the following about how the computer systems in new cars are compensating for or correcting an ever-increasing range of human driver input:The plan is that computer-controlled cars will catch driver error before it can…
Umm… now that I’ve actually read the linked article, the regular cars were a Honda S2000 (RWD), Skoda Fabia (FWD), Volvo V70 (FWD/AWD Station Wagon), and a Subaru Impreza (AWD)
The owner of the S2000 was a girl… I’ll let you draw your own conclusion.
I have an FR and an FF car. It’s fun driving them both because of the differences. Also, the FR has no ABS or traction control. The FF does have ABS, but it has a lot more power too so it’s easy to spin the wheels.
Not that I get to test them to the limits of traction very often, but it’s nice to have a “natural” reaction to loss of control which doesn’t rely upon either configuration. I find that I’ve learned to distinguish the “feel” of different skid situations and correct for them individually. I almost had a very bad accident just after I got my license in a Toyota 4Runner, where I missed a poorly-placed sign for a roundabout ahead in pouring rain at night, and got into a nasty oscillation skid (left skid, right skid, left skid… I was over-correcting).
Luckily, I recovered from it OK, but it was incredibly dangerous and someone could have easily been killed if they had been entering the roundabout at the same time as I skidded into it. Since then I’ve felt that all learner drivers should be given a special course and taught to identify and recover from skids before getting their licences. I would have gladly done so, had I been given the opportunity to do so on a road which wasn’t filled with traffic in a heavy, hard-to-control car.
Then again, safety is so blithely ignored by many of the drivers around here these days, I’m not holding my breath. Just today I had someone yell at me because I refused to overtake a slow cyclist by crossing on to the wrong side of the road.
I have recently purchased a brand new audi a3. It has all the technological bells and whistles, ESP (traction controll) ABS and even something called anti roll, which stops the car from pitching too much around corners.
Now, I took it for a service, and apparently it keeps logs of whenever any of the “safety” devices are activated. And since I’ve had the car for a year, I’ve never activated a single one during my driving. Now, that said you’re probably thinking I drive like my old granny, I drive qutie fast (not excessivly) and I like driving. I used to have an old opel astra (devoid of any saftey devi ces) and I used to take it to a race track some times and do a lap or two. No, I’m not by any means saying that I throw my car around to the extent that it would be sliding around corners and things. But would it not be logical to say, that the advancements in susspention, and tyres and such thing aid the way a car handles around corners and stuff as well?
I mean, yes the safety things are there to aid us in emergencies, but I would be that if you took a modern car, and disabled all the safety devices, it would probably be not too hard to wield it around that track due to the advancements in areas other than that of technological ones?
Comments?
“If you can’t drive without computer help, you shouldn’t be on the road…period. Comment by Bill, posted on January12 at 12:58 am ”
I agree Bill!!! And if an astronaut can’t fly to the moon without computers, he shouldn’t be an astronaut!
Who cares if they make it easier and safer! When you’re an insecure little man, everything is about proving your worth!! Am I right, Bill? Who’s with me?!
Let’s see, so we are not supposed to make cars safer because … Darwinism?
“If you can’t drive without computer help, you shouldn’t be on the road…period. Comment by Bill, posted on January12 at 12:58 am �
I nominate Bill and anybody else that thinks that way as potential candidates for a Darwin Award!
Laugh at Bills comment if you want but I think the argument is that people shouldnt drive their cars as if theyre bullet proof because they have extra gizmo’s holding them on the road, rather than “we should make cars harder to drive to sort out the real drivers from the idiots”.
If your driving your car to limits where traction control is regularly enguaged then your not driving safely. These things are designed to be harm minimisers in dangerous situations, theyre not designed to pick up the slack for bad driving. While the test was flawed by using cars of very different configurations (they should have just pulled the fuses on the owners vehicles), the fact is people are forgetting the fundamentals of how cars and the road interact and are driving along blindly in an increasingly padded environment.
The issue is expectations, not skill. The wild swerves and 360 degree spins described are a result of trying to take a turn too fast, and then trying to bank back when it becomes obvious that the car can’t handle that fast a turn. Taking the turn too fast for *that car* is not a matter of skill, but of experience with *that car*. If you took a bunch of ABS-only drivers and put them in a modern car, they’d drive like little old grannies, unable to push the car within its natural tolerances.
…the fact is people are forgetting the fundamentals of how cars and the road interact and are driving along blindly in an increasingly padded environment.
Couldn’t agree more, and I think the slow speed limits are also a contributing factor to “dumbing-down” modern American drivers. 55 mph interstate speed limits? Come on! Slowing everyone down to the lowest common denominator only makes us safer temporarily. Long term, it makes for less competent drivers and that will come back to haunt us all.
The easier things get the increasingly stupid we become. With so much assistance, we become less and less skilled, make poorer judgement calls and are ALL heading for a Darwin Award.
Almost every car that has ever hit mine was fully loaded with doohickeys, doodads and watchamacallits (OK, so it’s ABS, TCS, AWD, ALB… but since 70% of people don’t even know what they are, why bother them with jargon?) And the drivers were between the ages of 30-50.
I can’t drive with the Traction Control System on in my ‘02 Accord; with years of winter driving in Winnipeg, Canada under my belt I was beating 2 foot snowdrifts in Toronto in my trusty ‘93 Acura Integra (with NO snowtires, just all-season Toyos) driving my wife to work and was stuck there for hours because people in SUVs couldn’t get out of the drop-off roundabout!
Sure the Integra had features, but nothing really helps on ice but spikes and chains.
D’gah! Driver’s are stupid. It’s not toooooooo difficult. All you have to do is keep an eye on what your tires are doing (i.e. spinning should constitute motion) and pump the brakes to simulate abs…
Traction control and ABS can make an unskilled driver safer, and less likely to run into me. I see that as a good thing. I always felt my AWD Subaru Legacy GT was as good as you can get in nasty driving conditions, until I changed tires last autumn. I did some research and found what I considered the best combination of winter and summer tire, leaning towards rain and snow performance over dry capabilities. The difference over the stock all-weather tires is phenomenal. I have never driven a vehicle so capable in bad weather. My point? Modern tire technology has as much or more impact on driver safety in bad weather than anything.
Geggers, if we had to drive under the “limits where traction control is regularly engauged”, then highway design in urban/suburban areas would require one of two changes: either 25 mph speed limits or 40 lanes of traffic.
These vehicle innovations, as well as just about all traffic control devices, have been developed in response to ‘bad driving’ so, contrary to your wistful hope for road utopia, it is driving itself that is a dangerous situation. It will always be that way, unless and until geneticists isolate the maternalistic social scientist gene and go on to implant it into every future driver. Until then, padding will continue to be the response to what is otherwise called the human condition.
[...] Today’s drivers suffer without high-tech systems Drivers increasingly take for granted the technologies that keep their car under control in dangerous situations, according to a new study. Fewer than 30 of those questioned in a recent survey knew what anti-lock brakes were, and less than 5 percent understood traction control. To test some skills of the average driver, the U.K.’s Times newspaper brought along a 15-year-old BMW 3-series devoid of every modern safety feature and asked some regular drivers to take it through the test track at the Graham Griffiths of Ultimate Car Control training school. While all the drivers were able to drive their modern Volvos, Hondas, and Subarus successfully in all conditions, they failed when forced to drive the classic car. “Even these self-confessed petrolheads were unable to control their cars without the aid of ABS.” And without traction control, many of the drivers “swung about wildly,” heading into 360-degree spins. [...]
It’s true, drivers today are too coddled by technology. Half of the problem is that they probably don’t even know the car has such technology, or how it works. How many people actually READ their car’s owner’s manual and familiarize themselves with the car’s systems? I learned to drive on a ‘77 Camaro, no snow tires. Never crashed it. Drove an ‘87 5.7L IROC-Z, again no snow tires, never crashed it. Yet, I consistently see people wiping out in brand new cars with ABS, traction control, or better yet, four wheel drive SUV’s (seems some people don’t know that you have to press the “4×4″ button to put it in 4WD). It’s not the cars that cause accidents, and this article provides further evidence that it’s the PEOPLE! Get your dumb ass off the cell phone, stop putting on your makeup, don’t read the newspaper. CONCENTRATE, AND SLOW THE HELL DOWN! Airbags may protect you in an accident, but all the technology in the world won’t save you from making a complete ass of yourself, or worse yet, hurting someone else.
Ignoring the details of the article for a moment — in places where it snows, rear wheel drive ought to be flat outlawed. FWD cars are much more capable and forgiving of substandard tires and substandard driving. Back when we had one of each, the FWD car would motor right up snowy hills that had me fighting to keep the RWD car straight at all of 3mph.
I beg to differ, I live in an area where we get snow and ice on a regular basis during the winter. I drive my rear wheel drive bmw in snow and ice all the time effortlessly without the help of having triggered the traction control or abs. and yes I do know when they kick on. last winter I drove a front wheel drive grand am all winter and had more trouble with it even though it had newer tires which were more suited for the weather. my best friend drives his rear wheel drive camaro in the snow all the time without any issues as well. anyone who knows how to drive a car without all the coddling of abs and TC should prefer rear wheel drive for its far more predictable and consistant response to driver inputs. just for one example the complete elimination of torque steer. and talk to any race car driver and he’d rather drive a car with 47/53 front to rear balance than a car with 30/70 or worse balance any day of the week.
Rear wheel drive outlawed just for some snow on the road…LOL! That has to be one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read. What did everyone drive before FWD became popular? Yeah, RWD. I’ll say it again, it’s not the cars that cause the accidents, it’s the lack of driver skill. If I could drive a 350HP Camaro with 10″ wide rear tires (and no, they weren’t snow tires….they were high-performance “Z” rated tires) in the snow and not get stuck or get in an accident, explain to me why RWD should be outlawed? Why should anyone with a RWD car have to suffer for another driver’s lack of driving skill? The logical thing to do would be to educate the driver that lacks the skill. Or better yet, they could take the initiative and figure out how to do it!
[...] Some more links: Will you be able to drive a car with out high-tech systems in it? The Ultimate Space Invders Site [...]
I used to have a 1999 Camaro and moved from CA to MI. My first snow driving experience was getting stuck in about 8 inches of snow.
During the years I had the Camaro I got stuck a number of times but those were usually times that nothing short of a tank should have been on the roads anyway.
When my Camaro got broadsided and totalled I bought a Mustang GT. Some might say I went from a car that was not great in snow to one that was worse. True I’ve probably been stuck more in my GT than I ever was in my Camaro but again the conditions usually are such that I shouldn’t be out anyway.
But I prefer rear wheel drive and being in college I can’t afford snow tires or anything so I slip and slide along with my all season radials. One time while still in highschool when I had my Camaro I was coming home after freezing rain had fallen and we had about 2 inches of snow on top of that.
I could barely move at times and struggled to get traction at stop signs. But going around a corner I was spinning my wheels alot but I never lost control on the ice. I ended up getting stuck really bad at the next stop sign. But while I was stuck my g/f in her front wheel drive Saturn started to spin her front wheels around the corner and slid into the ditch.
So I’m all for rear wheel drive in snow. I’d never go to front wheel drive. I don’t like how they handle or feel.
Jen