ABS
Most of the time, you can get through life without ever really knowing that ABS is there. It's just three random letters that you see in car advertisements. About the closest you get to it is the slight juddering stop you feel when the examiner hits the dashboard during your driving test.

Let me tell you, when you really need ABS, you realise what an unbelievably good invention it is. The time I found this out was in a hire car in Spain (a Volvo as it turns out). While passing some cars in the fast lane of the motorway somebody decides to start pulling out not in front of me or behind me, but right into the front of my car. There was not much choice for me but to go into the central reservation or be side-swiped into it. Luckily, rather than a kerbed reservation as is usual in the UK, this road had the central dividing barrier separated from the road by a strip of gravel, which is unfortunately not wide enough to accommodate a car. This is where you really learn the value of ABS: braking and swerving with two wheels on gravel and two on tarmac, the chances of me maintaining control of the car without it would have been zero.

But this Volvo was a trusty steed and instead we just had a very close shave within inches of the barrier and a hundred metres of very bumpy ride before rejoining the road; the damage was limited to our underwear. After moving over to cruise in the slow lane for a while until our heart rates had once again dropped below 250, we eventually sped up and passed the guy. I didn't look myself, but my wife reported that he was merry chatting away on his phone seemingly oblivious to what had happened.

ABS: you may not know it, but it is seriously good shit.
(Mr T, Thu 19 Aug 2010, 15:49, 1 reply)

And on a bike even more so.
Only ever used it once. Glad it was there.
( Blind Meach Cautiously optimistic, Thu 19 Aug 2010, 15:54, closed)