My dealer tells me that ABS is not recognized in USA at this time. If a bike has "REAL" ABS, it probably came from outside the USA.UDA does not seem to feel that ABS on scooters/motorcycles makes a difference. :-
Not to put too fine a point on it, but your dealer is BS-ing you. ABS on bikes is very real, albeit a comparatively recent development because of the difficulties with making a practical ABS unit small enough to be usable on a bike. The important thing to remember is that ABS can save you from a skid, but not from a slide. If all your traction is available for braking then an ABS equipped bike will let you grab/stomp as much brake as you can and not lock up a wheel, you will slow down at the maximum rate possible for the conditions. The very very best of riders can match that rate on bikes without ABS or without the ABS triggering on bikes that have it. Most of us ain't that good and if we try we'll unstick it.
We all know this next bit, of course, but if you need any part of your available traction for anything other than braking, turning for example, then your braking force will unstick your wheel sooner. What this means for ABS equipped machines is this: A true ABS system will still activate at that point but it WON'T SAVE THE BIKE. This is because once unstuck, even for an instant, any lateral force is free to act, the ABS has no effect on the slide and you're still gonna lowside. For a single track vehicle, there is no antilock or traction control system that can protect against slides. That's all down to rider skill.
Bottom line is that with ABS you still ride like you don't have it, it gives you no extra protection in some loss-of-traction conditions, but the ones it can save you from are among the nastier ones, like overbraking in a panic stop where once the event occurs you end up with only three bad outcomes to choose from, depending on how badly you screwed up... either skid forward into the obstacle you're trying to avoid, lowside at high speed or highside.
