TITLE: Quotient of trivial bundles
QUESTION [8 upvotes]: Suppose you are on a manifold. Suppose you have a trivial bundle and a trivial subbundle of it. If you divide this trivial bundle with its trivial subbundle, do you get a trivial bundle as a quotient? The answer is generally no. What are the conditions on the manifold (s.c. etc.) and bundles (codim e.g.) to get a trivial quotient?

REPLY [6 votes]: If the dimension of the base $X$ of the bundles is less than the difference $n-k$ of the fiber dimensions then the quotient bundle is trivial. To see this it is enough to consider the case $k=1$ and then induct. An embedding of a trivial rank one bundle in a trivial rank $n$ bundle amounts to a map $X\to S^{n-1}$. If the dimension of $X$ is less than $n-1$ then such a map is nullhomotopic.