I have driven a few times a car with automatic transmission. Was kind of fun, but I'd not buy one. I would feel very unsure f.i. when parking the car and the street is icy. It's like the gear box is full of dough and you don't know at what point something starts to happen. Sure one gets used to it, but still it's not something I like.

Yes, in which case there's a switch on both the brake and clutch to disengage it.

I am not a car fanatic. I drive at the speed limit and have never been the driver during a collision. I have no idea what a locking tire feels like, and my car does not have ABS.

Does this make me a crappy driver?

What situation causes a tire to lock up anyways? I see people talking about driving on ice. There is no ice where I live.

In a way, yes. You should know what it feels like to have your tires lock up because if you're ever in an emergency where you need to stop fast, you need to know how to handle it if you want to handle it well. Studies have shown that in nearly 50% of accidents it was the other guy that caused it. If you just put the brake pedal to the floor without ABS then I'm afraid you're probably not going to stop in time. Worse still, you're probably going to lose complete control of your car (think spinning and/or rolling) which can make a bad situation worse.

There's such a thing called threshold braking. It's essentially what ABS does for you. Whenever the tires lock up, it releases the brakes momentarily and then grabs them again. This helps to prevent the skid caused by a locked tire, which helps prevent you from losing control (the actual effectiveness depends on the quality of the system). Without ABS, you basically have to do this yourself. A lot of people are taught to "pump the brakes" (I especially hear this from previous generations), but that's the brainless way to brake without ABS (with ABS it's even less effective). The intelligent way to brake without ABS is to use threshold braking. You only brake as hard as you can without locking up the tires, essentially walking the line between locked and not locked. If you go a little too far and feel the tires locking up then you let up just enough for them to start spinning again. Your aim is to slow them down, not stop them. Slowing the tires will slow the car. Stopping the tires too soon will result in a skid.

I think some people just naturally don't comprehend the physics involved when driving though, the same as I don't naturally understand social interaction. I suppose there isn't much you can do about it aside from taking it easy or getting professionally trained.

Well, worn road + hard rain can cause hydroplaning for example. A hydroplaning tire behaves pretty much the same as a locked up one, and will lock up if the brakes are applied. However one needs to be pretty damn numb to not feel hydroplaning taking place. Of course, if one has never hydroplaned before, he/she won't know what's happening.

They may lock up under any hard braking. Or when trying to brake normally but someone's leaked oil onto the road. Or if the oil's been cleaned up a month ago but it's rained recently and the road's still wet (a friend broke a collarbone this way), the residual oil is almost impossible to get off and with rain it becomes very slippery, even if the same spot provides normal grip in dry conditions.

There was a brouhaha a few years ago about some Suzuki SUV that could roll over from extreme maneuvering, and the Suzuki PR people said that "people don't do these maneuvers in parking lots" but the reason the testers did the tests in parking lots as opposed to actual roads was so innocent people wouldn't get in the way. But I'd think even this model of Suzuki could remain upright with the limited traction of a wet surface (unless it was really rough or had large cracks that could "trip" the tires)

Actually a car with a short wheel span is less likely to spin than one with a long one, this one I can tell from experience. A functioning rear pressure regulator also helps (these things can and do get stuck but are hardly ever serviced).

However, in an oversteer a long wheel span is much easier to control than a short one as the "lever" from the rear wheels (may they be controlled by the handbrake or engine torque) to the pivot (front wheels) is longer so the weight at the end of the lever, (which causes the oversteer in the first place) is easier to keep in check.

Or the infamous Mercedes A-Class (or "Weltklasse"^[1], as it quickly became known as over here), that was so unstable it flipped over during a standard avoidance test: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moose_test

I was doubting myself as I wrote that too. Just to be clear,...

 |-----|  -+
    |      |
    |      | wheel base
    |      |
 |--+--|  -+
      
 |-----|
wheel span (can differ between front and rear)

Correct?

My car has ABS and I'm more than happy it does as I'm sure it's saved me many times in snow and ice.

As for dodgy cars, this was my first (just a representation) and I crashed it up the side of a mountain, it had rear wheel drive, a massive bonnet and absolutely no ability to stay on the tarmac when cornering. It still drove me home though despite no exhaust, no wings, crumpled bonnet, broken roll bars, etc

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wheel base = wheel span != track width.

In my previous post, long/short => measured front/back => wheel span, wide/narrow => measured left/right => track width.

I never referred to rolling over, just spinning. Track width, spring rates and the height of gravity center are more significant for rollover tendency.

However, stiff springs also make a car easier to spin on soft and slippery surfaces such as gravel, snow and ice.

Suspension design is all about tradeoffs and a lot of suspension geometry affects a lot of other things, so at best a good suspension is at the driver's desired point between comfort, stability and grip. For example the legendary 205 GTI is comfortable and hangs on to the road like it was glued to it but it's possible to roll the car over by mad cornering alone. Likewise, I had this old Mitsubishi Lancer that had Weitec Ultra GT suspension kit, it had grip and it didn't roll and spun only if provoked but it was also uncomfortable as hell.

No. A bleeder valve that regulates the hydraulic pressure from the master cylinder or ABS pump depending on rear axle load. I.e. if the trunk is full of stuff, the rear end sits lower down, a mechanical linkage opens the bleeder valve so the brake pedal gives more pressure ("braking power") to the rear brakes. During hard braking, if the regulator is stuck fully open, the rear tires can lock up, if it's stuck almost closed, the inertia of the weight of the rear pushes forward while the front wheels do all the braking and the car becomes very unstable.

The purpose of the rear brakes is not slowing the vehicle down, their purpose is to keep the rear end under control when braking. The front wheels do all the stopping.

The new ones even look good.