What to do when Brakes Fail

Brake failure is an incredibly dangerous and unfortunately common occurrence with vehicles on the road. In this blog entry, the vehicle recovery and towing experts here at Tow Cars will provide some valuable and essential safety tips as to what you should do to handle your vehicle if you – God Forbid – experience brake failure on the road.

Gear Downshifting

Manual transmission vehicles – when experiencing brake failure – need to have the transmission downshifted as soon as possible. It shouldn’t be downshifted FAST, just soon – as this can cause your car to skid. Automatic vehicles can be downshifted by keeping your foot off the gas, and some automatic cars may have paddle shifters on the steering wheel that can be used to downshift.

Dual Braking Systems

Some cars have dual braking systems that provide some braking power in the vent of the failure of your front or rear brakes. If your brakes are the anti lock variety, apply steady pressure to the brake pedal – but if you have regular brakes, use a pumping motion to apply pressure to your brakes.

Slowing the Car Down Slowly

This depends on where your car is, but if it’s safe to do so, you can try to let the car slow down and stop by itself. We recommend putting on your 4-way flashers, and doing this if there’s not much traffic on the road – just move your car to the side of the road to be safe until you’ve fully stopped. If there’s lots of traffic around however, you will need to use your emergency brake.

Emergency Brake Use

Emergency brakes won’t actually stop your car fully right away – they actually take longer to stop vehicles than normal, properly working brakes. But their use is total must if your brake system has failed – use your emergency braking system with great care while moving your car in the irecton that’s least likely to cause an accident – ideally a safe distance to the side of the road where traffic won’t interfere.