The aim of this study is to determine if the degradation of one or more dampers of a passenger car with ABS leads to a statistically significant reduction of vehicle safety. Therefore, a compact and a mid-size car are tested on a flat test track and on an uneven test track by straight braking maneuvers at different levels of damper degradation. Both test tracks are scanned using a 3D laser scanner. For every level of damper degradation (on each test track) a new set of tires is used, a preconditioning routine is applied and 30 successful measurements are conducted to allow using statistical methods to evaluate the results. The results show that any level of damper degradation with each type of car and test track leads to a significant increase in braking distance and, therefore, to a significant reduction of vehicle safety. The braking distance extension varies heavily with the level of damper degradation and the road properties. The observed extensions range from a little more than 2% to more than 30% of the braking distance of the intact state. However, the vehicle's behavior does not deteriorate linearly as the oil volume goes down. The longest braking distance (when one damper is degraded) can already be at higher oil volumes, as this study suggests. As one possible cause, the reduced functionality of the ABS at asymmetrical levels of degradation is examined. This is the first study that applies statistical methods to straight braking distance measurements investigating damper degradation and offers the comparison of 11 different configurations with 30 measurements each. Additionally, the quality of the results is improved by the analysis of the properties of the two used test tracks and the transparent preconditioning routines.