Before the advent of all the brake pad compounds now available the split was fast road/rally and competition.
Competition pads may fail an MOT because at the speed the test rollers run they don`t get warm enough to exert their full friction characteristics. There is min spec when cold for road legal.
There was a classic mintex formulation (177?) and a non asbestos later version too that passed the MOT limits cold and were road legal.
I found a motorsport garage through a mate from work cos i got fed up with being told that the pads needed changing soon. In the days before ABS with over servo`ed brakes they were a boon, If you found yourself in emergency stop you could stomp with at least half a second in hand to then cadence and lock and unlock as needed and they didn`t fade with disks glowing red down a 1 in 4 for a mile in first gear ( they exist) in Yorkshire.
The biggest problem (IMHO) is driver awareness and reaction time. You need to put the fools on a simulator and see how many times they crash and maybe it will sink in. Maybe.
My driving instructor was an ex RCT HGV instructor.
It is very reducible:
What can you see?
Can you guarantee to stop in what you can see?
If not F------well slow down.
What happens if the vehicle in front has a seized engine or a transmission failure, suddenly, do you have an escape route round the carnage? Can you rely on your reactions to save you? Back off give yourself thinking and reacting time. Space=time= safety margin.
I have a suspicion from the carnage word this was from being in convoys under fire and seeing the one in front go boom, but it is undeniably sensible
I get seriously baseball bat wielding inclined with the self relievers who slot into my reacton space which would be fine at 30, not at 70ish, so I pull back to make time. Time after time after.........
The most interesting thing was that some people teaching HGV now use the mantra gears for going, brakes for slowing, but in the days of only unassisted drum brakes you used what little airpump braking you get from the diseasel engine because a 5 mile descent isn`t a wise place to assume even disc brakes will stop all those tonnes or not fade like hell and have nothing at the bottom.
The old wisdom is you select the lowest gear that will not over-rev the engine because pumping loss and therefore engine retardation in diesels is most at high revs
I think the late Ian Dury summed up the " german car so rules don`t apply to me" syndrome with
"premature ejaculation drivers" on new boots and.....