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Old 01-16-2013, 08:35 AM   #34
Norm Peterson
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Drives: 08 Mustang GT, 19 WRX
Join Date: Jul 2012
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Outside of specific accident/incident avoidance maneuvers I'm afraid that there isn't much in street driving or laps around the big track that compares to autocross in terms of how busy you are. And those are over and done with in a handful of seconds, vs typical run times in the 40 - 50 second range for most autocrosses around here. The lateral and longitudinal g's on a road course may be similar, but at autocross the turns and transients are all but right on top of each other. The 65 mph slalom runs through the truck tire debris is the closest approximation in street driving to autocross that I've ever encountered in nearly 50 years of driving.


I can look back over that same length of time and find at most only two incidents where a ST-nanny might have mitigated the situation. Emphasis on the words "might have", since in both situations tire grip simply wasn't there for it to work with either. About 43 years ago for one (curb strike involving snow), and maybe 35 for the other (gravel/marbles off-line on a back-country road, dry, I lifted just a little when I probably shouldn't have). Neither involved any injury.


Quote:
modern electronic aids add a margin of safety
About here is where the unspoken implications behind every cautionary advice to leave the nannies active in street driving comes in. The implied presumptions are that sooner or later everybody will need this assistance, does need to have a warm and fuzzy feeling simply because they're there, and that they should be forced (or at least strongly urged) to use them over their own reasonable judgment not to. Those thoughts may not have been intended, but's unavoidably how the advice is perceived. And that's what I (and probably others) disagree with.

The flip side here is that if you aren't needing these assistances, they aren't helping you any. And if it's been over a sufficiently long time where they either weren't available or not appropriately activated, you would have legitimate claim to not need them at all. Yes, I suppose it does come down to individual risk tolerance, though with sufficient experience without nannies you're better equipped to determine where the line between acceptable and unacceptable risk lies. (And no matter how strongly anybody hopes/dreams otherwise and develops still more nannies in response, there will always be risk involved in driving any motor vehicle.)

I think that since the vast majority of the combined time that my wife and I have been driving has been without stability control (well over 90% of our 93-ish total years) we've got enough basis to not need it. Hell, over 75% of our driving experience has been without even ABS.

So for anybody to even suggest that I should leave the nannies active comes off in the same tone as suggesting that I need to put these things



on my 26" / 21-speed Cannondale.


No personal flame intended.


Norm

Last edited by Norm Peterson; 01-16-2013 at 09:07 AM.
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