I've been trying to remember as accurately as possible what the driver told me about stopping. I think it was this (and I'm making no claims to have the skill to do this remember, I was just a passive witness...and I was also amazed the car didn't roll over): I think he said that he flipped the steering and pulled up the handbrake at the same time, then when the car was sideways he stamped on the brakes. The reason this works (!!) Was that stopping involves losing momentum. Some of the momentum was lost in turning the car. Further, when we lock up our brakes we very rarely lock up all four wheels, normally just the front. As the loss of momentum is at it's most efficient when the tyres are locked, if only the front are then around half of max efficiency occurs. By having the handbrake on first he'd locked all four wheels. We stopped absolutely dead. There was no skidding at all. Happily for me I've never seen it again!
On cadence, when I was taught it, brakes were nothing like as good as they are today. And the speed of applying/releasing was nothing like the abs rate. Basically it was taught to me that I should brake as hard as possible to lock the wheels.At the point of lock I no longer have access to steering. Therefore, if I need to steer to avoid an obstacle I should release the brake at which point I regain steering. Steer until I can again brake to travel in a straight line. It wasn't necessarily a fast motion more a sharing of steering and braking alternately, a regular pumping. It isn't fair to say that when the wheels are locked the driver has lost control in this circumstance as the driver has complete control, he either slides straight with brakes on or steers by reducing braking.( Unlike say on ice where the skid does involve loss of control.)
That was all many years ago and obviously in today's world I'm happy to rely on abs but surely I'm not the only person to have slammed on in an abs car and thought Hell why am I not stopping! Nick
