GENERALLY

Most drivers are not used to steer the car while powerful braking, because the normal driving situations do not include simultaneous steering actions. The driver will first slow down the speed by braking before the steering actions starts.

Individual car drivers meet seldom serious emergency braking situations where maximum braking is really necessary. But when drivers meet such situations are they capable of utilizing the available choices and resources optimally when they are not used to these situations. It is quite a challenge even for an experienced driver to control the situation optimally without information regarding braking, steering etc. More than 90% of accidents has been caused or worsened due to the delayed or missing reactions. In worst cases the driver becomes paralyzed and may even close the eyes when preventive actions could still be taken.

In most critical situation the driver has to be able to control at least the steering to avoid or reduce otherwise possibly fatal consequences - maybe sometimes in the future it might be technically feasible to have fully automatic emergency braking and steering based on fuzzy logic but at least today there exists technical, economical and cultural problems.

Examinations shows that in many cases the driver could have avoided the collision had he known that the brakes were fully functional contrary to his first impression. How? With a simple instruction (slippery road): "poor deceleration, avoid collision".

Ordinary people may not be able to register their behaviour and thoughts before a collision or during a hazardous situation. (In the near future we will be able to get information about the driver behaviour even regarding fatal accidents). It seems though that people very often try to make the car to stop sooner adding more and more braking power - even long after the maximum deceleration has already been reached and one should concentrate on steering. This phenomena will be amplified during the mentioned slippery road conditions when the maximum deceleration is reduced to just a fraction of that the driver is used to in normal road conditions.

DAP - helps you get rid of paralyzing feeling: "Have I lost the brakes"