@Jakg - Snow and slippery conditions are where systems like ABS come into play. However, I don't like them as I'd rather play with my brake and keep tapping it; sure the ABS system can do this faster and better than I can but it keeps a different type of thinking to keep your foot on the pedal.

All these systems are good for having the car do what you 'want' it to do, but they suck when it comes to the car doing what you 'tell' it to do. Basically the car acknowledges that you want to steer left and brake hard. So ESP will steer left as much as it can under traction - which might not be as much as you wanted- and the ABS will keep the tires from locking up. Thus the car turns left, and brakes at the limits that it can, but if you were 'playing' in a parking lot and tried this hoping for understeer effects you wouldn't exactly get that because the car behaves at the limit rather than allowing you to go over it. And this is why I don't agree with being forced to drive a car that has the systems; options I will agree with - I would like the option for my car to keep me safe from panic mode. But

I would say I've done reasonably well in all panic situations except for 2. The first being my first panic situation that was inevitable, and the second being with my head not focused. The first was my first and only 'off road experience' where I put my car into the ditch from hitting brakes on ice. If only my thought process was one-tenth of a second faster I never would have touched the brake. The second incident I was in a parking lot trying to remember what I needed, and again on snow and ice I hit the brakes, still sliding obviously - towards a stopped car - and hit the brake harder for about a tenth of a second in panic mode, when I snapped myself out and started tapping the brake, and stopped inches before. The had been many other slides in the snow in between those events that never brought on panic mode. (By panic mode I mean a mode where you can not think about the actions you must do properly to avoid the situation that you see coming.) So I do see the use for such devices, but I prefer controlling the car myself.

Ok another question - ESP doesn't know the road.

If you were on the inside of a bend and got snap oversteer (can happen well inside the limits, been there...), you could well find the front of your car pushed into the verge, which would cause it to slow down, sneding the back of the car into the other lane and oncoming traffic. In this situation, you want to stop the car from cornering so much (although you dont want to go straight on), and so you must balance the oversteer to keep in your lane.

If your on the outside of the bend and got snap oversteer, you may well wish to use it to keep your car on the road rather than straightening the car up... straight into a tree.

ABS does great in low-grip conditions - but on snow (as in snow thats actually thick) it never locks the wheels, and so you will slide a LONG way as a pose to locking up and using the mouting snow under the wheel to slow down (can't explain that right meh).

Lets say I see the car ahead slide on a road surface, or the camber pull it across the road violently, I may already try to countersteer or correct in anticipation of whats to come - yes the wheel may well be pointing left on a dead straight road, but I dont actually want to go left. If ESP choses to correct everything so I go left then I really am ****ed.

Again, i'm sure these devices would be GREAT for my Mum whose only reaction is "BRAAAAAKES"

Quote from three_jump :

And such kind of system isn't for those people who are clearly stupid enough to do so (in terms of driving over the limit on prupose), but to help those who not judge the situation correctly and need help.

I agree here. Except there are situations; Snow, Rain and other miscellaneous things that can cause someone trying to stay below the limits to exceed the limit. And I am not talking about speed limts; talking about traction for a given situation.

The problem is [I would take a good wild guess and say 60% or more of drivers (including ones outside of the male sex and over the age of 25)] drivers tend to go faster than both speed limits and traction limits. I don't pretend that speed is the only issue in an accident though; paying attention has more to do with it. My sister drove her car 30mph into a pickup without hitting the brakes - because she didn't see it coming; she looked at something on the side of the road, and the truck stopped ahead ... Luckily no-one was hurt, but she wasn't speeding, was well under traction situation and no ABS or ESP system would have prevented that - the driver need to pay attention in the first place.

You see a car flying towards an intersection, you have a green light; do you go? It is partially your fault if that accident takes place considering you saw it happening - regardless of the fact that the other car ran a red light! Legally the car who ran a red light is responsible, but accidents can be avoided in other ways than just the 'legally responsible' person.

Quote from Jakg :

Ok another question - ESP doesn't know the road.

If you were on the inside of a bend and got snap oversteer (can happen well inside the limits, been there...), you could well find the front of your car pushed into the verge, which would cause it to slow down, sneding the back of the car into the other lane and oncoming traffic. In this situation, you want to stop the car from cornering so much (although you dont want to go straight on), and so you must balance the oversteer to keep in your lane.

If your on the outside of the bend and got snap oversteer, you may well wish to use it to keep your car on the road rather than straightening the car up... straight into a tree.

1. Wrong, you'll never get snap oversteer inside the limits of a car / track, think about what you said. If that was really the case for a normal car to break out with no reason I'm sure noone would buy it. Americans would sue the company instantly to death (see us product law, negliance)

2. There are dozens of sensors checking the input and validating if thats whats comming in is valid and matches with the internal heading simulation. There is a failsafe too

3. ESP won't straighten up the car, it will get the car to the course the driver choosed with the steering wheel within reasonable physical limits.

Quote from Jakg :

Again, i'm sure these devices would be GREAT for my Mum whose only reaction is "BRAAAAAKES"

That is the proper reaction for ABS brakes. Tapping them is NOT the correct option. As for the rest, the brakes lock up on snow, I can hear ABS systems engaging quite often if I just place my foot hard on the brakes in my mom/dads vehicles with ABS.

Remember the point of the systems are "Do what I want, not what I say." Pressing the brakes mean you want to slow the car; at all costs, even if it means using less brakes! The driver just puts their foot down, and the car (with ABS of course) does the rest. I don't know what you mean in snowy conditions, as I've driven in a lot of snowy conditions and that is the only time I've engaged ABS - though I don't tend to reach limits in other conditions for obvious reasons.

Quote from blackbird04217 :

paying attention has more to do with it. My sister drove her car 30mph into a pickup without hitting the brakes - because she didn't see it coming; she looked at something on the side of the road, and the truck stopped ahead ... Luckily no-one was hurt, but she wasn't speeding, was well under traction situation and no ABS or ESP system would have prevented that - the driver need to pay attention in the first place.

You see a car flying towards an intersection, you have a green light; do you go? It is partially your fault if that accident takes place considering you saw it happening - regardless of the fact that the other car ran a red light! Legally the car who ran a red light is responsible, but accidents can be avoided in other ways than just the 'legally responsible' person.

ESP = Electronic Stability Program
It's not a ACC nor an emergency brake system (and that only reacts when it's already to late anyway and it's just about decreasing the speed).

Can we please stick to situations which are actually within the limits of a system and not mix it up with other systems?

EDIT:
As far as I'm aware todays ABS systems can detect different kind of conditions. I think we all know that looking the tires is better on gravel for instance.

I never pretended ESP was any other system, my point still remains, the driver needs to pay attention for a system like ABS or ESP to work in the first place.

Sure he does

But you can't blame the system for the driver not doing it

Quote from three_jump :

1. Wrong, you'll never get snap oversteer inside the limits of a car / track, think about what you said. If that was really the case for a normal car to break out with no reason I'm sure noone would buy it. Americans would sue the company instantly to death (see us product law, negliance)

Ok, obviously it's impossible to get sideways while under the limit, but I have had snap oversteer at very sedate speeds when I first got my new alloys with the dodgy rear tyres - I was on a fairly large roundabout at about 20 MPH at the time and the car started to get sideways...

And you can't say the system will be more effective when the bottom line is (possibly) a different issue - as you said; this is out of the control of ESP.

But my only thing is, I do not want to be forced into a situation where the I _must_ have this in my car; same with ABS. I am not saying there won't be times where I wouldn't like to have a car that has these systems so that they keep me safer than I could otherwise, but I don't want that forced upon me; If I want to play around in a vehicle, then I want to be ABLE to play around in a vehicle without having silly systems mess up my entertainment.
So ESP; - Good for typical drivers, in typical situations with the driver paying attention (like they should be anyways).
- Good for the panic mode, when you have the controls telling the car what you want it to do, but not exactly where the controls should be for doing the appropriate action.
- Bad for the driver who still wants to have control of the car, and have fun in reasonable areas; his own 'back-40'.
- Optionally - GREAT. Forcefully - SUCK.

I however do not, nor will not play around in inappropriate places/times. I did not add 'have not' because in high-school I was a dumb-ass, it didn't take me long to break that routine as I broke out of it before I hit age of 20.

Quote from Jakg :

Ok, obviously it's impossible to get sideways while under the limit, but I have had snap oversteer at very sedate speeds when I first got my new alloys with the dodgy rear tyres - I was on a fairly large roundabout at about 20 MPH at the time and the car started to get sideways...

You would have broke limit somewhere; dodgy tires, oily road etc. 20mph is pretty fast for a roundabout, at least the ones I know of that is a damn fast speed for that type of corner; regardless of the actual speed limit.

I've taken that roundabout literally hundreds of times (on the way to school and work and back...) and 20 MPH (or whatever speed I was doing) was slightly slower than the speed I usually take it at with no isuses at all. The rear just started to step out and admitedly it wasn't a mega dorifto moment but I did need to countersteer to correct it.

I had the same problem on a bed a few days before - needless to say I got rid of those tyres sharpish.

And ESP would have solved that to the point where you wouldn't have even counter-steered for the problem - because it would have been solved before it became a problem.

Quote from Jakg :

Ok you know what I mean - I'm all in favour of ABS and ESP being fitted to all cars however you should be able to switch it off - ABS does need a switch (because in snow its useless) and similar for ESP I personally feel if a car was starting to get out of shape, the last thing i'd want is a computer trying to alter the throttle / brakes for me - imagine trying to drive in LFS, and whenever you got near the limits someone cut the throttle / put on the brakes in an attempt to "save" you...

Have I tried a car with ESP? I must admit no. ABS? Yes and I was very impressed.

First off, I'd like to say that ESP WILL scare the hell out of you the first time you have to use it, and if you're like me, you WILL hate it. I really disliked the fact that it cut all throttle (this was in my mom's FWD van) and slowed the car from aprox 50-30mph without me even thinking about hitting the brakes, and I'm told by the friend who was in a car behind me that the brake lights did not engage, but he was braking hard to avoid hitting the car that I was going around (damp tarmac, and I'm used to driving my car with no ABS, so I figured stop and get rear-ended or dont bother with brakes and go into the opposite lane with no traffic).

In reference to the off button, just before christmas, my dad and I went to pick my grandad up from his house as he had gotten 21 inches of snow a few days earlier. In the days following, temperatures in the day got well above freezing and at night way below freezing, making the roads extremely rutted with what was basically 3-5 inch deep snow with random patches of tarmac. This tossing of the car about caused the ESP to constantly be engaging, and after 20 miles on a road like this when we got to my grandad's house, the brakes where smelling quite burnt (the car was our '10 Subaru Impreza). The same road an hour and a half later with the system turned off yielded no burnt brakes.

You can say what you like about ESP, but it doesn't half help when it's wet and you gotta pull out the end of my street onto a busy main road with terrible visibility...

(TC is part of the ESP system on my Golf...)

I've only perused this thread, but I'll paste my response in another forum to someone who was arguing that ABS is bad and they wanted to disable it.

Quote :

Sorry dude, but I agree with DriverX on this one. When I'm driving in snow, I frequently slam on the brakes when nobody is behind me to test the road surface and know how much grip I have. The reason I do that is so that I know where the limits are, and as a result I NEVER deal with the ABS in the snow. Anyone who has trouble with the ABS on a regular basis in the winter and considers it a serious problem or trouble point is not driving correctly. You should know how much grip you have, and you should be able to brake without entering the "ABS zone." There is no such thing, unless the ABS system in a particular car is defective, of the ABS activating BEFORE a wheel slips. I generally have a good feel for how much grip the road surface has, and I know how much brake pressure I can apply without locking the wheels. In essence, I'm doing threshold braking but not QUITE reaching the limit, which is how you SHOULD be driving in snow to begin with. There's no such thing as being a good driver, and pumping the brakes in the snow. I get the impression some people on here think "that's the way any really good driver would do it", but it's not. In the real world, with other cars around you, you shouldn't be crossing that threshold at all. Ever. Same goes for locking the tires and letting the car dig in. You should never have to do that at ALL if you're driving intelligently.

And I don't buy the whole "someone cutting you off" argument because, first off, the way that argument was used makes it sound like it happens to you every 5 minutes. If you're at all a good defensive driver, it shouldn't happen to you very much at all, if ever. I leave PLENTY of space in the winter, and I can anticipate someone "cutting me off" long enough before it happens that I can gently slow down a bit. Even if someone really DOES completely cut you off in a way that is likely to lead to a collision, 9 times out of 10 it makes much more sense to go around them (as in the winter, I make a point of avoiding having cars directly next to me whenever possible) rather than applying your skilled threshold braking to stop in time, because odds are if you do that, you'll just be rear-ended by the ABS-equipped car behind you anyway.

I think the best option is a red button on the steering wheel. So that in that 1/10 situation where you decide you just want to STOP, you can press that button to disable the ABS for 10 seconds.

The thing about ABS is that not only does it help with being able to turn and stop, in the event of an emergency stop, you dont get flat spotted tyres. Yeah, yeah I know, you should be threshold braking with the clutch in, but when you are puttering along and suddenly you have to stop hard, you're going to lock up, and as I did with my old tyres, you'll flat spot them. All of that said, I do find it extremely annoying on ice, and especially snow, where allowing the wheel to lock and build up snow in front of it can help you stop faster.