Talk:Combined braking system

Legal requirement for dual controls?

The CFR citation given does not require two separate actuators (foot and hand) but rather "either a split service brake system or two independently actuated service brake systems", defining a split service brake system as "a brake system consisting of two or more subsystems actuated by a single control..." The way I read this, a motorcycle may have one control (foot or hand) in the United States. But this regulation is used to support this incompatible statement in the article: "Invariably, the handlebar lever operates the front brake, and the foot pedal operates the rear" and "Any bike with CBS must still have two separate inputs for braking". This doesn't seem to be the case. I think there is even a counter-example to the "must have two inputs" rule: BRP Can-Am Spyder Roadster, which is classed in the U.S. as a motorcycle [23] and has a foot pedal only. — Brianhe (talk) 01:30, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I just saw this after adding cite-needed because I read it the same way. I'm pretty sure what it means is that you can't make homebrew linked brakes with a y-shaped brake fluid cable running from the brake lever to both brakes (i've seen this described in some motorcycle forums). In this case, a failure in one brake cable would disable both brakes. By contrast, If the front lever hits two different switches which cause two separate brake fluid cables to apply pressure to the two different brakes, one cable could fail and the other brake would still work. The only way a single component failure could disable both brakes would be if the lever fell off. Dingsuntil (talk) 18:56, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

UPDATE: I decided to just go ahead and match the summary to what the actual law actually says. I decided that only my explanation of what's being banned is OR. Dingsuntil (talk) 19:11, 25 February 2018 (UTC)