-=> ROY J. TELLASON wrote to TOM WALKER <=-

 RJT> Tom Walker wrote in a message to Roy J. Tellason:

 ->  TW>  I believe they all had a "Limp Home" mode in a
PROM chip plus a
 ->  TW> lot of the regular runing parametewrs. Mostly what you loose with
 ->  TW> Long term power loss is the Failure History in the older computers
 ->  TW> and the "White Rat" feature in the Newer ones that
has such things
 ->  TW> as HOW fast you were going when the Air Bag was Triggered.

 -> That "how fast you were going" thing is nonsense.  If you lose
 -> traction, it
 -> doesn't matter how fast your speedometer indicates,  as I've had
 TW> experience...

 TW>  Well if you are going 90 Miles per Hour in a school Zone when the
 TW> Air Bag deploys that is NOT Nonsense!!!!  IT is being ACCOUNTABLE
 TW> for your ACTIONS.
 TW>             Plus in the case of Looising Traction the LAW in most
 TW> Staters as far as I know REQUIERS yuo the take into Account the
 TW> Weather and Road Conditions!!

 RJT> You don't understand what I'm saying here...

 RJT> I've not had a *lot* of experience in this area,  but I've had *some*.
 RJT> There was one incident,  back about 1980,  where I was in a curve,  and
 RJT> when I went to turn the wheel back to straight at the end of the curve
 RJT> the car kept on curving.  I'd apparently lost something in the steering
 RJT> linkage.  The car then had a close encounter with a utility pole,  lost
 RJT> the driver's side front wheel,
 RJT>  did a 360 while going back across the road,  and ended up in a ditch.

 RJT> I don't think I ever exceeded 40-45 MPH during that whole process,
 RJT> since I was in an area that I wasn't terribly familiar with and it was
 RJT> a drizzly kinda day.

 RJT> But that's _not_ what the speedometer said,  when I came to rest.  It
 RJT> was *WAY* up there,  and thta's why I say that what the car thinks was
 RJT> going on is nonsense,  and may or may not have any bearing on the
 RJT> reality of the situation...

Somewhat similar situation.
Entering Gulf BLVD in Madeira Beach from a side street 
with a light rain my Cadillac fishtailed badly though
I was travelling but 5 - 10 MPH.
Appears there must have been oil on the road.

Speedometer ran WAY up on the scale there as well indicating something
like 55 - 60 about a second before the car got traction and indicated
something like 6 MPH.
Never hit the brake as that's the wrong thing to do in that situation.
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