I can't remember if we have ever discussed this in here.

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/portal/site/nhtsa/menuitem.012c081c5966f0ca3253ab10cba046a0/

Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards; Electronic Stability Control Systems
As part of a comprehensive plan for reducing the serious risk of rollover crashes and the risk of death and serious injury in those crashes, this rule establishes Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) No. 126 to require electronic stability control (ESC) systems on passenger cars, multipurpose passenger vehicles, trucks, and buses with a gross vehicle weight rating of 4,536 Kg (10,000 pounds) or less. ESC systems use automatic computer-controlled braking of individual wheels to assist the driver in maintaining control in critical driving situations. NHTSA estimates ESC will reduce single-vehicle crashes of passenger cars by 34% and single vehicle crashes of sport utility vehicles (SUVs) by 59%, with a much greater reduction of rollover crashes. NHTSA estimates ESC would save 5,300 to 9,600 lives and prevent 156,000 to 238,000 injuries in all types of crashes annually once all light vehicles on the road are equipped with ESC.

Well... I guess I'll be keeping the Solstice for a long, long time, then.

You know, they could just as easily reduce those rollovers by lowering the center of gravity of all those SUV's...

Oh, wait, I forgot... all those women feel safer sitting waay up high. Never mind.

I can live with this regulation. The bigger question is whether they will still allow the systems to be defeated.

As Boffam said, as long as it's defeatable, I'm Ok with it.

The FIA, through the "FIA Foundation for the Automobile and Society", has been a strong proponent of ESC. They've pushed for car makers worldwide to standardize the name of the system so consumers can easily know if a car is equipped or not.

The latest article from the FIA on the subject is>>> HERE.
Mention of the US mandate on the ESC system is in the article.

And since Canada will adopt it, that is another impediment to people who want to import vehicles from the US (assuming our currency is still equal in 2012)

Considering that it is equipped on more and more new cars everyday, I expect it will be ubiquitous by 2012. I agree that it should come with a disable switch. There are legitimate times when it needs to be disabled - an not just to do doughnuts! For example, driving your truck on the beach, the LAST thing you want is ESC!!!

Or getting started in the snow or ice.

We have to keep in mind that there is a difference between stability control, which responds to yaw, and traction control, which responds to wheelspin. It is traction control that is the thing that most ####### progress in sand, snow or ice. And prevents burnouts.

Our Bimmer has the ideal arrangement...a 2-stage system. One press on the DSC button disables the traction control and raises the threshold for intervention of the stability control. This is the setting I usually use for getting going in winter (plus it allows pretty wild slip angles for some Petter Solberg action). Keeping the DSC button pressed for a few seconds completely turns off both the stability and traction control.

The whole thing is just flat stupid and unessecary. all it means is that now I've got to buy several thousand dollars MORE equipment to service these cars. And of course they'll keep the sevice equipment propritary 9even though it's illegal for them to do so) just so that youve to go back to the dealerships for service. Bad enough now that I've got to turn away Hondas and Chryslers that have that on it because if you do anything to the alignemnt or brake systems, it shuts the car down to the point of being undrivable.
Here's a though, how about making it harder for morons who don't know how to drive to get a license? If you can't handle a car, you shouldn't be driving. Neither one of my vehicles hace any sort of ESC or ABS systems on them, and one of them doen't even have power assist on the brakes or steering. And that's the whay I like it! Get rid of all the unecessary crap they think they need to put into cars nowadays, it'll cut cost and reduce the overall prices. Nevermind that it'll remove one more thing that can fail on the car.

^ Well said. Teach the friggin' people how to drive, ferchrissakes.

In 34 years, I've never once rolled a vehicle. How is that possible?



(well, OK, we rolled one on purpose once, but that's a whole 'nuther story...)