shutdown -t parameter being ignored?

[Rich Fearn]

Hi

I recently changed my /etc/inittab file so that pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del shuts 
down my Fedora Core 1 machine, rather than rebooting it. At the same time I 
thought I would increase the -t parameter from 3 to 10.

I then tested the new configuration, and while the machine does shut down 
instead of rebooting, I am not sure that the -t parameter is having any 
effect.

Almost immediately after pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del I see this message:

INIT: Sending processes the TERM signal

Various processes are then shut down. After a few seconds I see this message:

Sending all processes the TERM signal...

About 5 seconds after this, I see:

Sending all processes the KILL signal...

Regardless of the value I use following -t, there always seems to be a 
5-second delay between the TERM and KILL lines.

>From the man page for shutdown it seems to me that the -t value is supposed to 
control the delay between the TERM signals being sent (as a "warning"), and 
the KILL signals being sent. Yet it doesn't seem to have any effect.

Is my understanding of the -t parameter incorrect? Is this the expected 
behaviour, or some kind of weird bug?

Thanks

Rich