Originally Posted by prathmann

I already participated in that thread - see post #2. It seemed to me I was in the majority and the group with the most facts and figures in supporting that, in general, the car can stop faster. Now if you have a very skilled cyclist, he has enough pre-warning to get into the right position, and the car has lousy tires, then sure the bike might stop quicker.

But a car with decent tires should be able to stop at about 1g, good sport or race car tires can do even better. In that case, stopping from 30 mph (44f/s) should take 44/32 = 1.375 sec during which it travels 30.25' with no particular driver skill being needed.

And note that in the case you're discussing where the driver initiates a brake check there's no reaction time involved in the case of the driver, but the cyclist has to first recognize that the car is braking, then position their weight far back to avoid an endo, and finally apply the brakes to the point of almost, but not quite skidding the front wheel. Even if all that is done perfectly in zero time the bike will still lose if the car has decent tires and the driver does a hard stop.

I don't doubt your personal experience since I don't think most brake-checkers are actually aiming to create serious injury (who really wants dents and blood all over their trunk lid). So they may well have held off on their braking. But I wouldn't advise anyone to rely on that in all such situations.