Towing Mishap

[square1]

What else could I have done?

Here's a truism: You will steer to where your eyes lead you.
Was there an out to the left or right?
Look for an opening and drive through it.

I once topped an icy hill to see traffic dead stopped on an expressway. I wasn't driving fast, touched the brakes and nothing. Didn't even seem to slow. Saw an opening across the left lane into the median, let off the brake and steered through it. I don't know by how little I missed the car stopped in front of me. My eyes were focussed on the hole in stopped traffic, and then how to navigate the median.

I admit I was lucky that day, but I am certain if my eyes were locked on the stopped car in front of me I would have hit it hard and square

 

[dodge man]

I suppose in theory a person can stop a vehicle without ABS better but I bet 99% of the time it helps, I’ve seen the electronics help personally a couple of times. The only time I see ABS not helping is on deeper snow on a gravel road where locking up would let the tires dig through the snow and bite into the gravel.

 

[Jstpssng]

I suppose in theory a person can stop a vehicle without ABS better but I bet 99% of the time it helps, I’ve seen the electronics help personally a couple of times. The only time I see ABS not helping is on deeper snow on a gravel road where locking up would let the tires dig through the snow and bite into the gravel.

Some here have been mentioning using the "emergency brake", well, vehicles don't have "emergency brakes" they have "parking brakes" To be used when you park your vehicle, not as a backup brake for when you let your service brakes fail. I guess you could use them in event of a brake system failure, but that is not what they are designed or intended for. As someone mentioned, if you did apply the parking brake hard enough to slow you down much, they may throw you into an uncontrollable skid, probably with a worse effect than rear ending someone.

As I mentioned above I was one to disable the ABS, after doing about $350 in damage (+-1000 today) because I couldn't stop for a washout in a gravel road. A few years later I was in my new company truck, running in 4wd because it was snowing. As I approached a stop sign the ABS kicked in and I couldn't stop. Just as I was about to slide through a busy intersection I hit the parking brake hard enough to lock the tires causing them to cut through the snow, and the truck stopped dead in it's tracks.

My owner's manual states that under certain conditions ABS will increase your stopping distance. Unfortunately those conditions are usually when you need maximum stopping ability.

My father had a cartoon in his shop of a horse and rider in mid-air careening past the cliff they fell off, with the rider pulling back on the reins screaming "I said Whoa, dang it!!!"
That's how I feel when driving on snow with ABS.

 

[airbiscuit]

We were taught to "pump" the brakes in snowy conditions. I much prefer that to anti stop brakes. They might be okay on rain covered roads, but not so much in the snow.