Speed in BIONICLE Tales of the Tohunga

Theory on how speed works in this game: When you are running up against an object or sliding into a wall, your speed doesn't actually get set to zero. I'm not sure why, but I believe that the game has some other way of preventing your position from changing that doesn't involve setting your speed to zero.

This explains a couple things:

Curve jumps against the edge of the water: because your speed is still treated as though you're walking.

Launcher sliding: Your speed actually gets locked (unless something else changes it) and it explains why you just start flying again once you're past a wall.

Lavaboard glitch: I believe that when getting pulled into the wall your speed is actually increasing despite being unable to change position. Eventually it becomes so much that the game sends you through the wall into the first area that it sees fit. I think that when you get sent backwards or whatever is actually the game changing directions, just like a normal launch. Why do tiles sometimes change? I have no idea. Why do you not always seem to go in a straight line? I have no idea.