Suicide Cables Safe for Motors?

[rtse]

My team decided to ban suicide cables for connecting motors directly to batteries for safety reasons and to extend motor lifespan. Our electronics team is building a regulator with a potentiometer and a fuse to go between batteries and motors so that we can test without a RoboRIO and/or speed controller.

I have seen many teams use suicide cables to spin motors at competitions, and as far as I can tell, connecting motors directly to batteries seems to be the norm.

What is the purpose of such a regulator?

It seems to me that supplying a 12V motor with 12-13V from FRC batteries shouldn't cause the kind of physical motor problems due to excess voltage that I read about (saturation).

Can FIRST motors really draw enough current from FIRST batteries to cook themselves? Or is there another problem that I am missing?

Disclaimer: I am a clueless software guy and I don't know much about this stuff. I just want to understand the science behind why my team is doing this.