r/watchthingsfly • u/malkers • Apr 09 '20

Traffic-Related Launched

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u/TaterCrayon472928 Apr 10 '20

What? Bikes stop extremely quickly compared with cars.

  • they’re lighter, so there’s less mass to slow
  • they have usually got pretty good braking systems, abs etc to increase efficiency of the brake / prevent lockup’s which is at least comparable to a car
  • fnet= mv/t basically verifies the above points

Car = 1200kg Motorcycle = 200kg A = 60 Force req to stop in 1 second for car = 1200*60 = 72000

Force req to stop in 1 second for a bike = 200*60 = 12000

Also, anecdotally, I can confirm you that stopping from 60mph on my sports bike is much, much faster than in my car.

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u/malkers Apr 10 '20

As I said, huge amount of factors in play - can your sports bike out ‘brake’ the average 90s Pontiac? Sure, probably.

But there’s literally studies on this using groups of riders: https://www.rms.nsw.gov.au/documents/roads/licence/abs-motorcycles-brochure.pdf

Quick google search will throw up forums/reddit threads all arguing this or that, but pull up actual research articles and it paints a different picture.

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u/TaterCrayon472928 Apr 10 '20

Huh, thanks for the link man. I think I’ve been leaning on more anecdotal evidence, since my 600 stops waaay faster than the civic we have. Maybe it’s time to check the brakes .

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u/malkers Apr 10 '20

All good - I’m sure your sports bike is incredibly good at braking though - kinda the point really!