Jay,
Very interesting questions.
1. Subjective. Not many people really know how to drive imho.
The need for abs brakes supports this. Many people don't know
how to stop a car using emergency 4 wheel lock up. They press
the brakes slowly which will lock 1 tire before the others,
at 100 km/h this will surely spin them out. My *guess* to your
question is a car with partial abs will be just as dangerous as
a car with no abs. Unless you know how to do 4 wheel lock up,
then partial abs is more dangerous since a 4 wheel lock up can't
be done.
btw, a 4 wheel lock up will stop a car in a shorter distance than
a car using abs... but... abs definitely gives better control, and
that will help you steer away from trouble (which is the goal in
stopping).

2. I don't know if they shut down system... sounds like a good idea to me.

3. I don't know this either, except, on my car there is a low fluid detector
and it does wire into the abs computer... my guess is you're right.

Personally, I think there should be some kind of eject button...
if you're heading for trouble, just eject out! OR maybe eject the wheels,
I'm sure the chasis of a car scraping across the ground should stop
quicker... although, you might need some kind of heat shields?


8052 value:
Victor, sorry you didn't have success with project on real parts.
Simulators and real chips are not the same... simulators run
in a perfect world (Windows 95/98? - almost perfect!).
May I suggest this approach, work on part of the code that
produces the output... write a test version of your program
that will assume it needs to activate the output. Test this
in the real world... what you want, is some way to know
that the basic processor is working. Even if your test
code does nothing but to toggle the output every second....
just perform this test, it gives you confidence in the
hardware. Once this test has passed, move on to
processing the input(s).

Hope this helps!.
Josh