ABS and Audi's "Antilock Off" Switch

[Vincent Gelinas]

Honestly, as much as I don't like ABS, it's quite effective on dry or wet
pavement.

In the snow and ice, I hate it. I find I stop faster by going into a
controlled skid.

Also, I don't like stability control, but that's another discussion.
On Jan 31, 2013 10:12 PM, "mboucher70 hotmail.com" <mboucher70 at hotmail.com>
wrote:

> In December, during a highway drive from Toronto to Montreal, weather
> turned quite bad.  At some point we were brought to stop-and-go traffic,
> perhaps between 0 and 20 km/h.  At one point when we needed to stop, it
> turned out that we were on black ice hidden by blowing snow.  The ABS
> kicked in, and it seemed as though we’d sail straight into the car in front
> of us!  I kept solid pressure on the pedal, and we JUST managed to stop,
> probably within a few inches of the car in front.  If we hadn't stopped, it
> wouldn't have been much more than a harsh bump.  Nonetheless, it’s a bad
> feeling!
>
> I'd had similar (though not nearly as bad) experiences in the past, but
> still never disengaged the ABS because all of the studies I'd read had made
> the case that ABS could save your life if you locked up the tires at high
> speed.
>
> After this near miss, I’d had it with the ABS.  I immediately put the car
> in park, pressed the "Antilock Off" switch, and continued the drive.  It
> felt so much more in control, at low speeds, even if I was locking them up
> at times.
>
> Question I've been pondering is what's to be concluded from this about the
> "Antilock Off" feature that used to be available:
>
> 1.) It was useful in situations such as that above, but since the overall
> benefits of ABS outweighed the downsides, it just became a standard safety
> feature and “Antilock Off" switches disappeared.
>
> 2.) ABS has significantly improved from designs used around the 1990
> vintage, to make the need to disable them obsolete.
>
> 3.) The “Antilock Off” switch was a useful feature and would be nice to
> have in current-day production cars.
>
> Other thoughts?
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