...you get when you depress the brake pedal hard?

LOL. What high esteem you have for Slate readers. Here are a few for future articles.

The steering wheel: the big round thing where you rest your latte when you need to answer your phone.

Traction control: the flashy light on the speedometer that comes on all the time when you forget to put on your snow tires.

Apex: the part of a turn where you decide you're really going a bit fast and hit the brakes.

Shifter: A strange lever that goes side to side as well as forward and backward. If you don't use it enough, your car gets noisy.

Double declutch, heel and toe: What?

Perhaps such people just wouldn't read the article because it holds nothing of interest for them, but I'd venture to say a huge fraction of drivers have no idea what ABS really is, how it works, or what benefits it offers. Their only experience with it is "that vibrating feeling in the brake pedal" they'll probably complain to the dealer about after they have a panic stop.

Yes, it's very basic stuff. Yes, any car enthusiast knows about it. No, I don't think it's clear to everyone, even to most people with a driver's license.