Braking a PTW

In a special study on the role of braking in accidents, Sporner [49] used a sample of 502 injury accidents in 2001-2002 in Germany. 279 of the motorcyclists took action to avoid the accident, of which 54 lost control. Based on the accident records an estimate was made of cases that might have been prevented if the rider had been able to use an anti locking brake system (ABS).10-15 accidents would have been avoided and another 30 would have had less severe consequences since the system would have prevented loss of control and would have reduced the collision speed.

Today ABS is available for many large motorcycles and scooters, but is still too expensive to be fitted to all PTW’s. There are various systems with ABS on front wheel only or on both wheels with separate or combined control of both wheels. A combined braking system (CBS) automatically distributes the braking force between front and rear wheel. These systems are also available without ABS, but these will not prevent locking of the wheels when braking too hard.

Even ABS is no guarantee for successful braking in an emergency. Braking in a curve produces forces on the steering system which have to be corrected by the rider. For this reason the full potential of ABS can not be used at the same time. Also riders have to learn to use the full potential of ABS when riding in a straight line.