On Sat, 15 Oct 2005 01:26:09 +0100, Laurence Payne
wrote:

So do busses. Maybe there should be a trip at each bus stop in case
the driver forgets a full bus needs more braking than an empty one?

To add to Brimstone's comments, in some cases the worst thing you
could do with a road vehicle is to jam all the brakes on. That could
lead to loss of control or another collision. That's probably one
reason why road vehicles don't tend[1] to have emergency braking of
that type, as I'm certain the technology exists to implement it.

Of course, as he posted, if there was a Roads Inspectorate with the
same type of powers, road vehicles would probably be banned

[1] I'm told by Conor on uk.t (or uk.rec.driving, one or t'other) that
lorries do have that capability if there is a disconnect between the
brakes of the trailer and tractor unit. This is probably fair enough,
as braking is probably better than no braking capability whatsoever,
but it isn't necessarily the case that the best way to deal with a
road "SPAD" is to emergency brake - sometimes accelerating out of the
problem is safer.

Neil

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Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
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