Hilarious post, thank you for the chuckle.

I have read Finnegan's Wake and find it to be an amazing book, deeply moving and insightful and a real flex of writing accomplishment. It's also very tough and I've heard folks say it takes years to read the books necessary to have the right context to read it. I generally don't like this kind of thing -- read whatever you want when you want! but it's hard to argue that most people who enjoy FW have more context and are able to enjoy the layers more fully than those with less shared literary context.

In almost all situations, brakes can exceed the traction the tires have to the road, so applying additional braking force to the wheels will not allow you to slow down more quickly. To put it another way, apply brakes "too hard" can already exceed the tires ability to slow the car down through friction with the road, as can be felt when the car slides while you're trying to brake. ABS is a system that keeps brakes from locking up by lessening the braking force applied to the tire to the point where it has traction again or is within it's braking threshold.

One thing that isn't touched on here is that engine compression applies a passive slow down and can be very important for situations where your brakes might overheat, such as descending a steep and long hill.