On Sat, Oct 22, 2005 at 04:22:13PM -0600, William Robb wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "graywolf" > Subject: Re: Self Portrait? > > > >To me the thing is that when it gets that way you know you are near the > >edge, with that fancy traction control you don't. Just because the robot > >feedback seems stable does not mean you have any more reserve cornering > >power than when driving manually. I would rather be scared, I may slow > >down then rather than crash. > > > > You know when it is doing it's thing, and it works very well. > Sure, you can outdrive any system if you set out to do that, but in day to > day driving, I'd rather have traction control save my sorry ass if I show a > little bad judgement, or have to make an evasive maneuver in non ideal > conditions. > I would like to be able to turn off my ABS though.
It's less and less likely that anyone short of a full-time professional race driver (and sometimes not even then) can out-perform the modern "driver aids" such as traction control and ABS. I've been lucky enough to experience just what a professional driver can do - I got a ride round Brands Hatch a couple of years ago in an Audi TT (in full touring car race spec) driven by Roberto Moreno, in a steady rainstorm. It was an eye-opening experience; the car was skating around as if it were on ice, and I'm sure I would have been unable to control the car at anything like the speed we were going. But even that calibre of driver will use ABS, traction control, etc. if the rules of competition permit.
