I've been trying to find the time to finish this post for over a week!
So I took my car down a rocky gravely road, and tested ABS -- which kicked in easily on that surface. It wasn't particularly dramatic but i'm glad to know what it feels like so if it happens in real driving it won't startle me.-mouser
That in itself is probably the most important - takeaway for you - part of the test. Because the last thing you need in an emergency situation...is more surprises.
I also tried to get it to trigger on a regular road, but a hard stop at 35mph did not trigger it -- despite giving me whiplash and throwing baby cody from the back seat to the front seat, and so i gave up on that.-mouser
Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb here, and assume you just gave the brake petal a good stomp to effect that reaction...yes? While it is excellent for testing purposes, It is also the exact type of problem behavior I was initially eluding to when one - fortified with ABS - takes the expression "Panic Stop" a bit too literally.
The reality of it is that in "normal" driving, if you
really have to suddenly clamp down on the binders ... You weren't
really paying attention. Otherwise, you'd have had other accident avoidance (e.g. escape) options available. And yes, after 35+ years of street riding this is where my motorcycling elitist background tends to bleed through rather quickly. Because for most people it's "just a fender-bender", but or me it could quite easily be a fatality ... Mine! ...So I tend to take that and the whole defensive driving thing quite seriously.
Now here is the part that people seem to have difficulty grasping. We've already had much discussion about ABS being able to stop a vehicle faster ... but the problem is - from a truly holistic defensive driving stand point - that's irrelevant. Because the real reason that ABS was originally explored as an option for cars, was to resolve an issue with steering control during hard breaking. Once the wheels lock due to excessive braking the ability the steer the vehicle is completely lost. That! is the one and only reason for ABS to ever be explored as a possible safety feature in an automobile. The fact that it also happened to make the cars stop faster by properly regulating break pressure was and still is a completely accidental (pun intended) fringe benefit.
Want proof, simple ... There are 2 wheel and 4 wheel designs for automotive ABS systems. Now for the 2 wheel only systems - on a 4 wheeled vehicle - which 2 wheels get the advantage of ABS control? I'll give you a (a slight misdirect) hint. Due to weight bias under breaking, the front wheels provide 70% of a vehicles stopping power. The ABS btw... goes on the back wheels. Why??? Steering control pure and simple. This configuration is actually most common in pickup trucks which when traveling empty and having no weight in the rear, have a very bad reputation of locking the rear wheels and sliding sideways.
Faster breaking...not so much. Safer breaking, yes ... But that - in defensive driving - is not necessarily always faster breaking. You see in defensive driving, the person who stops the fastest, is frequent also the first person to get killed in (if not the cause of) a chain reaction crash. First rule of defensive driving is in an emergency...look for a soft place to land.
Motorcycles stop faster than cars do - it's simple weight ratio physics. So I have always been able to stop much quicker then the folks in the cars around me. However... If the guy behind me can't stop as quickly as I'm about to...then who's fault is it really if he just so happens to run my stupid ass the fuck over? Hm..? Not really a trick question is it? I have to maintain steering control so I can swerve to some out of the way place - so as to politely and defensively allow him to proceed to continue and finish crashing into the idiot/obstacle that I just avoided. Otherwise to be brutally honest it is quite simply
my own fault that he ran over
my ass.
Now sure, Florida law says that if you rear-end someone, then the accident is automatically your fault. So according to 'The law' I would be completely blameless. However in any defensive driving classes you take the term applied to this type of situation is called being "Dead Right". Yeah, sure you're "right"...but you're also dead. Pyric victory anyone?
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... You're screwing with me, aren't you? 
