Could anti-lock brakes detect a flat?

By using a computer to monitor the rotation of the car's wheels, an anti-lock braking system helps drivers avoid skids. Could this computer also monitor flat tires? Check out this HowStuffWorks podcast to learn more about brake systems.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff works dot com.
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(00:22):
Brain with today's question. Could an anti lock braking system
detect a flat tire in a car? And anti lock
braking system is a system that helps the driver to
avoid skids during panic stops. In a car with normal brakes,
all four wheels will lock and cause the card to
skid if the driver jams on the brakes in a

(00:44):
panic situation, the problems with skidding our first, the car
will actually take longer to stop. In second, the driver
loses all control of the vehicle, and the anti lock
braking system lets a computer monitor of the wheels. If
one of the wheels locks, the computer compulsed the brake
on that wheel, so the wheel keep spinning a little bit.

(01:05):
Because the wheels continue to spin, the driver can continue
to control the car with the steering wheel. The computer
census rotation using a rotation sensor on each wheel. If
the computer were programmed correctly, and if there were a
light on the dashboard, then the computer could detect a
flat tire and warn you about it. What the computer

(01:26):
could do is look at different rotational speeds For one
out of the four wheels, a flat tire would spin
faster than a properly inflated tire, So the computer would
look for one tire spinning faster than the other three
on average over the course of a period of time
that it could warn the driver by activating the light

(01:46):
on the dashboard. There are several production cars that use
this technique, starting with two thousand six models. The National
Highway Transportation Safety Administration requires that all cars have some
kind of tire US You're monitoring system. Do you have
any ideas or suggestions for this podcast? If so, please

(02:07):
send me an email at podcast at how stuff works
dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
go to how stuff works dot com.