BAS - good or bad?

[blassberg]

I like BAS - in fact I activate it occasionally just to practice it (emergency brake assist)

My non-Merc friends are horrified at losing control. Especially when I tell them the story where I'm in the back of my ML and a colleague is in the front with our defensive driving instructor. Colleague has an auto E320 estate and is not used to a manual. Collegue depresses brake thinking it was clutch..... stands ML on nose in the outside lane to the dismay of volvo behind.

so BAS good / bad / dont know ?

 

[SLinKyjoe]

its good. anything that helps you must be good.

well thats how i see it. the SLK did 70-0 in 116ft. not bad that. car behind did too. dunno how

 

[jberks]

Good - probably, though I've never needed it to date.
The one time it did kick in, I came round a blind bend, saw a car coming on the wrong side, jabbed the pedal and immediately released it as he went back to his own side, but the car had other ideas and continued to brake hard for another second or so. Rather disconcerting.
However, it's nice to know it's there if I really did need it.

 

[television]

There are lots of new things waiting around the corner like ESP. Like what happed to JB, though most of us will never use it as such, when you do need it,its there. In cars like mine with the ABC suspension,the car does not roll at all on bends, but there has to be a point of no return.

Malcolm

 

[mioba]

it can only be good, to prevent an unfortunate accident.

presafe shocked me once, the only time it kicked in.

 

[hawk20]

In some ways the ideal is for all cars to stop at the same speed. If some stop a lot faster than others they may cause concertina crashes with one car hitting them in the back then another hits that and so on. I know when I drove a lot in the Peak District, and ABS began to spread, it was common for ABS equipped cars to be hit in the back -on ice or snow- by cars without ABS. Eventually everyone gets ABS and then it is unambiguously a reducer of accidents. It is complex.

What I find more of a concern is recent tests showing that in the wet a car with just legal tyres with 1.6mm all over can take 60% longer to stop that a car with tyres of 3mm depth.