I hate to throw the cat amoungst the pigeons....... but BF Goodrich did a survey some years back (Carbon disk brakes only) and found the use of auto brake to be very beneficial to the reduction of brake wear. Basically they said it was NOT how hard you applied the brake more so how OFTEN. They also noted that the excessive use of brake fans also increased wear. Our company adopted the policy to reflect same.
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Dont forget you wont be leaving empty handed!