Braking Techniques in an Emergency

Obviously, the best way to stop quickly is to hit a tree but it isn’t such a popular option if you ask me. People have reported that hitting a concrete wall works equally well but even this option doesn’t have the best of endings by any means for the passengers, or the car, or the wall itself.

Joking aside, traffic rules in our country are defined. I am not saying that they are the best in any way but we have a groundwork laid out. The government runs campaigns in every form and manner to ensure they get the message across to the citizens of the nation. Unfortunately, no-one takes it seriously. Now, as I am sure you are aware, traffic rules and regulations are defined to ensure everyone on the road gets where they intended to go, safely. And there is a lot to it. We, however, are going to focus on one utterly underrated aspect of the vehicle you drive: The brakes.

There is this witchcraft techy thing called ABS – Antilock Braking System. ABS is offered in nearly all the cars we purchase today. In some, it comes as standard and in some it comes as an optional extra or in the costlier variants. With the kind of traffic we all run into these days and the erratic driving skills that nearly everyone proudly showcase, it is important to know how your car will behave under intense braking. The easiest way to explain how brakes with ABS behave is to compare it to a setup with brakes without ABS.

If I may speak for everyone, no one wants to drown in their own faeces by applying brakes like a lunatic and scaring themselves to death. Come to think of it, the drowning will become even more resentful if you have passengers – Just a thought! But at times, you come across situations when you have no other option but to brake as hard as possible to stop the car in the shortest possible distance. Onwards then to the boring stuff.

Braking without ABS 

What people usually do: In an emergency, everyone tends to mash the brake pedal into the floor. However, in such a situation, the wheels lock and rather than braking quickly the car skids towards the object you are trying to miss. Because the wheels lock under intense braking, there is virtually no way to steer the way around the object. That, of course, also depends on the size of the object and on the intentions of the driver!

What to do: Slamming the brakes hard is possibly the worst thing you can do in an emergency. Then? Well, let me explain. Follow these steps:

        1)   Squeeze the brakes gently but firmly right up till the limit where the tyres start to skid. If you have reached the skidding stage, you will lose control of your vehicle. You need to back-off and reapply the brakes in a gentler but firmer manner. You will hear a faint howl from the tyres before the threshold is reached. Don’t worry, it simply means you are doing the right thing but not locking up the brakes.

       2)   Don’t look at the object that you are trying to miss. Having said that, you should be aware of any movement that the object in front of you might make. In India, various situations can arise: both with living and non-living things. Just be aware of any potential movement that the object might make. Now, because the wheels haven’t locked up, you have some steering control available. Try and carve a way to miss the object in front of you. This is important whether your car has ABS or not.

             3)   Press your left foot against the floor of the car. This will help you brace your body against the damage and make you sensitive to knowing how you should modulate the brake pedal. Again, this can be helpful whether ABS is present or not.

       
       4)   Try and master this technique if you can’t be bothered to buy a car with ABS. Empty parking lots is the ideal place to do this. Even better, try and measure the difference in distance your car stops under intense braking with wheels locking up, and with the more subtle approach explained above.

Braking with ABS

Well, let’s admit it, not all of us understand how ABS works. Although I will take this opportunity to explain what it is and how it works (whether you want me to or not), I would like to employ you all to please read it carefully. ABS is an automatic feature which does the braking part exactly how it was explained above. The driver pushes the brakes hard and then ABS figures out what to do under such circumstances of braking. It uses wheel speed sensors to determine if one or more wheels are trying to lock up. Once that stage is sensed by ABS, a series of hydraulic valves limit or reduce the braking on that wheel. This in-turn prevents skidding of the car and allows drivers to gain steering control of the car.

What people usually do: What people end up doing is that they apply the brakes but don’t do anything to steer their way around the object. Also, on feeling a pulsating sensation from the brakes, they let go of it at times. Although ABS will work to help the car stop in the shortest distance possible, the stopping distance also depends on the size of the brakes. Bigger and stronger the brakes, better the ABS efficacy.

What to do: Follow these steps to get the best out of the braking system and make that spending a little extra for the ABS, worth it: 

       1)   While braking hard if you feel that pulsating sensation from the brakes, don’t back off. That just simply means that ABS is doing its job well.

       2)   Depress the brake pedal rapidly but not instantly. This is vital to maximize the braking potential of your car. The ultimate goal is to bring the car’s tyres just shy of breaking traction.
 

             3)   Don’t swerve the car and brake at the same time. Gentle turning of the steering is enough at higher speeds to miss the object in your way. Any vigorous movements or jerks with the steering wheel can lead you to losing control of the car. 

       4)   Avoid using the transmission for quick stops. Everyone knows that slotting home a smaller gear at higher speeds can greatly reduce the speed of the car in a jiffy and with a neck-wrecking jerk. But this is possibly the worst punishment you can give to your car. It can severely damage the clutch, the gearbox and the engine itself. However, on long downhill stretches without any engine power, using gears to slow down is a different story.

Whether you have ABS or not in your car, don’t press the clutch pedal while intense braking. Pressing the clutch with the brakes can actually hamper the braking potential of your car. There are a lot of boring and uninteresting things behind this theory but I am done being boring and uninteresting for this piece.

Now that we have covered both the sides, here is a video that explains all of it in 47 seconds. Thanks to the uploader allegroracing on YouTube.

I came across a link on a website which has one paragraph on HOW TO STOP QUICKLY. I thought you guys might want to give it a read. They’ve wrapped it up in the best way they could! 

Delhi Govt. Website Link 

Quite a serious topic we’ve covered here. I’ve tried to maintain my composure (as much as I could) and I’m sure you guys have noticed, unless you’ve nodded off. I don’t blame you. Not at all. But think of all this in this way. We spend loads on accessorizing our cars with cameras, sensors and what not. You might want to spend that little extra on the brakes as well. At the end of the day, even an inch of gap can save lives. Drive safe.

Honda - More than just another Japanese car maker

 

As soon as the name Honda comes into the equation, everyone just nods along in sync for complete agreement that they make the best all-round cars in India. When I say all-round, it doesn’t refer to the shape of the vehicles. No. What it actually means is that Honda know how to make an Indian motorist smile by ticking nearly all the required idiosyncrasies.

It is easy to mix the Honda name with all the other car manufacturers who produce a bunch of cars across the world. But as is the case with all the big names, there is a lot more to the brand Honda than what we actually know. Honda has not only helped the automotive industry grow at an exponential rate, but also has had a profound impact in various other sectors which use internal combustion technology. Here is a list of things which, I’m sure, you didn’t know about Honda, or, didn’t bother to know.

• Honda’s founder, Soichiro Honda started his career with the production of piston rings in 1937. The name of the company was Tokai Seiki. By 1941, Honda cracked a contract to produce piston rings for Toyota. For people who don’t know what piston rings are, well, they are used to seal the combustion chamber in the engine.
• At the start of World War II, Toyota took 40% stake in Tokai Seiki. Mr. Honda was demoted from the post of president to senior managing director.
• Damage caused in World War II in 1945 led Mr. Honda to sell all his stakes in the company to Toyota for ‎¥ 450,000. He used the same capital to found Honda Technical Research Institute in October 1946. This is where Honda started making motorised bicycles.

That’s enough history I guess. Moving over to a bit more interesting facts.

1. The best-selling vehicle of all time is a Honda. No, it isn’t a car but a desperate looking two-wheeler. The production of the Honda Cub started in 1958 and with upgrades in one form or the other, the Cub is still in production. It has sold over 60 million units which is more than the Ford Model T, Volkswagen Beetle and Toyota Corolla sales figures put together. The Cub still sells nearly 5 million units each year in countries where small, cheap to maintain scooters remain popular.

2. Honda, I kid you not, has been the largest producer of motorcycles for the last 5 decades. As we stumbled upon the short and frankly boring lesson earlier, Honda actually established itself as an automotive giant by producing motorcycles. Mr. Honda was a bicycle builder but soon after the Second World War, he found some minutely small 50cc engines which were supposed to power radios during the War. He simply attached the engine to a bicycle and out came the first ever Honda motorcycle. By 1964, this obsession of motorized bicycles led Honda to be the world’s largest producer of motorcycles.

3. Honda introduced 3 cars simultaneously in 1962 to start the era of mass car production. These were S360, S500 and T360. Both S360 and S500 were sporty looking roadsters while the T360 was a sad looking donkey. I am sorry but what I meant to say was a hard working but a slightly sad looking mini truck. It actually looked like as if someone has sped off in front of the poor thing, leaving it in a cloud of dust.

4. Probably one of the proudest moment of Honda as a brand was when an American Rock Band named themselves as The Hondells. Here is the video of the famous track, Little Honda. In today’s world and age, it’ll leave you giggling more than banging your head on the dubstep.

5. When we think of Japan’s automotive industry, not that we do it very often, we think of names like Toyota and Suzuki first before the likes of Honda and Mitsubishi. Well, another fact that will surely leave you stunned is that Honda was the first Japanese team to enter into Formula 1 racing.

This goes way back to 1961 when the sport was dominated by the Europeans. Even the Americans were struggling to match the standards set by the "Euro munching maniacs". Honda won their first race at the Mexican Grand Prix in 1962 with Ritchie Ginther in the cockpit.

6. For this one, I want you to really put your heads down and think about it. Which engine manufacturer powers most of the boats, motorcycles, scooters, lawn mowers, portable generators, tillers, water pumps, commercial vehicles, outboard motors and Honda cars? Oh god, I gave it away on that last one didn’t I?! Yes, it is Honda. And producing numerous kinds of internal combustion engines for such a vast array of products makes Honda the world largest producer of internal combustion engines. For math lovers, in excess of 14 million such engines are produced every year by Honda.

7. Ever wondered what i-Vtec stands for? Well it somehow is the short-form for Variable Valve Timing and Electronic Lift Control. 

Now, I can explain how this technology works and how nearly every car manufacturer from Porsche to Toyota adopted the same technology in their cars but I do appreciate the fact that most of you will fall asleep if I did. So, in plain English, it is a technology that helps the engine to be fuel efficient at city speeds and transform into a snarling monster when you mash your right foot into the floor.

8. Honda was the first car manufacturer that brought a hydrogen powered green car to the masses. It was called the FCX Clarity. When I say green, it doesn’t mean it was green in colour. It had a more environmentally green thing going on for itself. It was a car that combined compressed hydrogen from the fuel-cell with oxygen in the air to produce water as the only emissions component. This meant it was a car with no harmful emissions at all. Moreover, this was the first car ever which was available for lease only. The reason being that the each car cost Honda nearly a million dollars to make. So even if you were the Sultan of Brunei, you couldn’t buy one!

9. For a cheque of $3.45 Million, you can buy the fastest Honda on the planet. It’s called the Hondajet. With a top speed of 483 mph, a cruising altitude of 43,000 feet and a range of 1358 miles, you can surely trump nearly everything flying in sumptuous comfort. Well, Mr. Sultan of Brunei, you can have one of these for sure. Sorry for the bad news earlier though!

10. ASIMO, which stands for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility is the robotic face of Honda. It can run, walk upstairs and come down as well (mostly without crashing), and has the potential to serve and assist disabled or elderly people. All that sounds very familiar, doesn’t it? Oh I know, the movie I-robot starring Man in Black - Will Smith. I knew that movie was way ahead of its time! Anyways, back to Japanese robot. It is also a testing ground for Honda’s Artificial Intelligence Algorithm. Even this sounds similar. Arnold Schwarzenegger? Is he finally back from the future? He can’t be because this ASIMO guy doesn’t really scare the crap of anyone. Maybe it is the reincarnation of Honda’s Founder. Who knows! Till then, watch it dance with US president Mr. Barack Obama.