Know Your System Today

The two instructions in this lesson are opposites, so the one unforgivable state is not knowing which car you're in.

• Check the dash. An ABS warning lamp at ignition means the system is fitted. The same lamp staying on while driving means it's fitted and faulty — you're driving a non-ABS car with ABS habits until it's fixed.
• Check the handbook, or ask — for any vehicle you drive regularly, including borrowed and hired ones.
• If it's genuinely unknown in the moment: brake hard and progressive rather than stamping — the opening of threshold technique, which is acceptable to both systems — then respond to what the pedal tells you. Pulsing means ABS: pin it. Locking means no ABS: cadence.

That last point is worth rehearsing, because it's the only instruction that works before you know the answer. Hard-and-progressive costs an ABS car almost nothing and saves a non-ABS car from an instant lock.

And for either system, the numbers only hold if the hardware does — the tread, pressure and brake-condition multipliers from the previous lesson sit underneath every technique here. No braking technique outperforms the tyres it's transmitted through.