Air brakes..........

This unfortunately has the affect of giving your arguements absolutely no validity.

 

run-away truck stopping zones. Lots and lots and lots of deep gravel. Then a huge berm of gravel if that wasn't enough! Wedge that, sucka!

Matt

 

True. You can't say that the sum of the frictional forces available for acceleration and turning always add up to 1 (or any other constant), because that ignores things like weight transfer.

I usually just talk about the "friction circle":


It shows graphically that the more you're accelerating or braking, the less you'll be able to turn. (The only allowable combinations of lateral and longitudinal acceleration are the points on the heavy line or inside the circle). That's a generic picture, since the friction circle varies from car to car and also depends on the road surface, but the general shape is always the same.

The curve of the lines shows that there's not a one-for-one tradeoff between lateral and longitudinal acceleration, though, or else it would be a "friction diamond" and not a "friction circle".

 

You aren't supposed to pump ABS brakes, some know this but many (most?). don't seem to know that you never pump non-ABS breaks either; use threshold braking if you have non-ABS brakes. Pumping any kind of brake just causes harsh dynamic changes to the car's balance.

Yikes.. caught back up in this thread!

 

LOL, sucker!