Braking on Dry Pavement and Gravel With and Without ABS

It has been observed that locked-wheel skidding friction values are essentially vehicle- and tire-independent. It has been tacitly assumed by most crash reconstructionists that any ABS-equipped vehicle would also decelerate at nearly the same rate as any other ABS-equipped vehicle. This paper will review literature with relevant straight-line test results on paved roadways and gravel, and present additional results from recent tests generated with four modern vehicles built by three manufacturers.

Results from the recent testing showed that locked-wheel skidding values on a concrete roadway were similar for all four vehicles, but the ABS-improvement on the same roadway varied. On gravel, ABS was always less effective than locked-wheel skidding. ABS and locked-wheel results on gravel had less car-to-car variation than tests conducted on concrete.