The biggest benefit of ABS is the
potential retention of steering control. But, that doesn't amount to much of a benefit unless the driver (or in this case, computer) takes the appropriate evasive action.
We've beaten on that horse in other threads (not that I mind it being discussed here.....), but a lot of the time, stopping distance does not decrease significantly with ABS - this is not well understood by the general public, and IMO is a good example of people projecting false hopes onto a technology.
Long ago (marketing is mostly on a totally different vector today.....), Audi used to have a dash switch to shut Off ABS - there are conditions where you stop faster with ABS off. But, that requires a driver to
Make a Decision, and Take Action...... yeah, I know I'm off my rocker, hallucinating about the olde daze again
Salt belt country has a few twists to ABS use.... brake calipers tend to seize up, esp. rear calipers. W/O ABS, as rear braking performance declines, even just moderately attentive drivers will notice that they are (way too) easily locking up the front calipers - any sensible owner would get this glaringly obvious brake fault addressed.
With ABS, in the above scenario, braking distance just gets progressively longer over time, with no dramatic symptom exhibited. Many drivers won't notice this slow deterioration of performance.
A lot of the heavy marketing basically comes down to
Trust Us / Pay no Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain ...... but if you peel back the onion just a bit, you sometimes find collateral problems that can surpass the original issue being "solved".
Rgds, D.
