Even with all of our seatbelts, crumple zones, and airbags, the most survivable accident is the one that is avoided. For that, your brakes are the most important part. If you see something in your way, you slam on your middle pedal and hope you stop before slamming into it. For a long time, there was a risk that the wheels would stop turning before the car stopped, lengthening stopping distances and more importantly, taking away your ability to steer. The photo above, taken from Mercedes Benz’s test track in 1978, shows the impact. When the driver of the brown car hit his brakes, the wheels locked up, he lost his ability to steer, and slammed straight into the pile of boxes. The white car however was equipped with a then-novel and now ubiquitous safety system that allowed the driver to steer clear of the boxes and come to a stop in less distance. This is the story of antilock brakes.
Antilock brakes require lots of complicated equipment, but could not be simpler in principle. If the car detects the wheels locking up, it will turn the brakes off then on then off over and over again until the car stops. Modern systems can turn the brakes on and off 20-30 times per second. This gets rid of the risk of skids and enables full control even in emergency situations.
Gabriel Voisin
Antilock brakes have a very long history. The first was devised by Gabriel Voison, a French automotive and aircraft pioneer, in 1920. This era was long before computers or electronic sensors, so his was quite complicated, involving a flywheel connected to brake valves. It was noted that stopping distances on the aircraft that used it were reduced by 30 percent because pilots were no longer scared of applying full brakes with no risk of lockup. It also greatly reduced tire wear. By the 1950s, “anti-skid” brakes were popular on many aircraft. But reliability and costs meant it took a while for the technology to arrive on road cars.
Jensen FF
The first car to have antilock brakes was the 1966 Jensen FF. This was still an all mechanical system and wasn’t as fast as today’s electronic systems, but this undoubtedly is the first production car to ever have antilock brakes, and no other company (*cough Mercedes *cough) could possibly brazenly lie and say they were the first.
Chrysler Imperial
The first 4 wheel all electronic system arrived on the 1971 Chrysler Imperial. It was called “Sure Brake” and built by the Bendix corporation. It wasn’t a very popular option. In 1972, Ford responded with a rear wheel antilock system on the Lincoln Continental and GM did the same thing on rear wheel drive Cadillacs and the Oldsmobile Toronado.
Ford Scorpio
The German-built Ford Scorpio was one of the first affordable cars to offer it as standard equipment, playing a key role in it winning the European Car of the Year award in 1985. By 1990, only the cheapest cars didn’t at least offer ABS as an optional extra.
The Chevrolet Cavalier was for most of its life a crude and crappy econobox. But in 1992, it became the first car in its class to have ABS as standard equipment, probably trying to avoid a repeat of Citation premature lockup debacle. AC Delco had devised a less expensive ABS solution that was just as effective as earlier systems. Unfortunately, they became optional again in 2002, as a cost cutting move. But that was really a dead cat bounce.
By 2009, even the crappiest of economy cars, such as this Toyota Yaris, had them as standard equipment and in 2012, they became mandatory.
Today we take for granted our ability to stop safely and maintain control thanks to ABS. Antilock brakes are just one of many reasons why driving is safer than ever.
