The importance of braking skills cannot be over-emphasised enough. It is the single weakest part of our driver training, but the most important skill if we are to avoid an accident. The use of braking needs to be a controlled action based on a choice of where to brake, when to brake and how hard to apply the brakes. Unfortunately, in most cases, this is not the case and the brakes are used reactively, usually late and often too severely for comfort or safety.

The best way to understand the need to brake safely is to consider the forces that are in play when brak­ing is applied. Dissipation of energy is the principal factor involved and the most important form to be considered is Kinetic Energy.

While I do not intend to turn this subject into a physics lecture, it is necessary to grasp one simple princi­pal that affects the outcome of every collision accident suffered by drivers irrespective of other circum­stances. What you need to remember about Kinetic Energy is that it increases as a product of the square of the speed of the vehicle. The formula is very simple:

Kinetic Energy = 1 MV2 , where M = mass & V = velocity

This means that while you may think that travelling at 40mph is only 33% more than the 30mph limit and so is not a particularly serious offence, the kinetic energy available at 40mph is far greater and so causes more damage and far greater injury. The move to introduce 20mph limits in the highest risk ar­eas is actually a very sensible proposition, as most children would survive a collision with a vehicle at this speed. Unfortunately in a 30mph collision, most children are seriously injured and many die, while at -40mph most die! Unfortunately for most children, they do not live in 20mph speed zones and even if they did, most drivers fail to adhere to them correctly.

The most common age for a child to be involved in a road accident as a pedestrian is at 12 years old. This may seem strange, but it is the age when the skills required to judge the speed of an approaching vehicle are yet to be attained, but at the same time they are considered old enough to explore the area alone, on foot or on bikes, and so share the roads with the vehicles that they are unable to safely avoid. By the age of 16 these skills are just about attained, but a year later they are behind the wheel and likely to run over the twelve year olds who appear to run out in front of them without warning.

ABS

The Kinetic Energy formula also explains the stopping distances recommended by the highway code. The stopping distance for a vehicle travelling at 20mph is only 20ft, but at 40mph it is 80ft. How many drivers can honestly say that they know that there is no hazard within 80ft ahead of them in an urban environment? At 20mph we are covering 30ft per second, and if our vehicle weighs one ton, we have a kinetic energy value of 1,008,000 ft/lb. At 40mph, where we are covering 60fps, we have an incredible amount of energy, over 4,000,000 ft/lb . and at motorway speeds, 80mph in the real world, an amazing 16,000,000 ft/lb. of kinetic energy - which explains the horrendous damage caused in even the simplest motorway accidents.

In the real world, braking skills are taken for granted, in that we are expected to learn to brake through practice in our normal lessons, but even the so called emergency stop is conducted at 30mph in a con­ trolled fashion. We then progress to faster, more powerful cars, equipment  such as ABS and other  newer devices and yet do nothing to improve our braking skills. What we need to look at now is how to improve our ability to react, to brake and even to out-perform the ABS that is fitted to our vehicles, or be able to use non-ABS equipped vehicles safely.

As well as raising awareness, there are areas of knowledge and training which can make a real differ­ence. For example:

When your new car is delivered, ensure that you are fully aware of any new equipment fitted and can . make good use of it if necessary. For example, an emergency stop on a straight and wide stretch of road will ensure that the ABS is functioning, is working on all wheels and that the driver is familiar with it's operation. (When drivers first hear and feel the ABS working they often release the brakes fearing that a wheel is falling off or that the braking system is damaged. This prevents any thought of avoiding the hazard - so they hit it!)

Understanding the possible reasons for common accident scenarios and the causes of them will serve to remind you of the areas which you are most likely to ignore when you are driving a high mileage on a daily basis. This can take the form of group discussion, review of near-miss reports, (see 3) and theory training using some of the aids provided with this manual.

Increased awareness of the number bf accidents that have occurred within your company , as well as the number of near misses, will ensure that your company drivers do not think that they are "immune" to accidents or that accidents always affect others but never themselves. If you do not al­ ready have a recognised reporting procedure for near misses as well as accidents, you are missing out on a valuable resource. The ratio of near misses to actual accidents currently runs at 9:1 or higher, so highlighting them prevents accidents rather than simply waiting for them to happen and then trying to prevent a repeat.

Regular practice of your braking to ensure that your equipment is fully functional, that your brakes are efficient and not pulling unexpectedly and most importantly, that you can manage to use the Thresh- old Braking technique that you are about to learn.

Only by taking a positive decision to carry out this level of self-training and understanding of this area of risk can you hope to be able to either use your ABS equipped vehicle correctly, or to avoid involvement in an accident irrespective of whether your vehicle is ABS equipped or not.

Let us look at braking techniques in more detail and in particular what you can achieve with a little prac­tice and how this compares with the average driver that  you meet on the road.