Imagine this: You are driving down the road, and suddenly your brakes go out & you cant stop. What do you do?

Question

To Paul-

yes this could happen and has happened to someone I know. Not all cars nowadays have two brake systems. People do drive older, crapier built models. Anything is possible

Answer 1

Take your foot off the gas, put the car in neutral, and pull your emergency brake.  If you are driving a stick, downshift and then pull your emergency brake.  If that doesn't work, try to turn your car off (use the key).  You will probably destroy your transmission, but it's better than dying.

Answer 2

Your first reaction is to remain calm and just put the car in nuetral. That will slow you down to a crawl pretty quickly. Don't just slam on your emergency break or you may get a shock of whiplash.If near a field you may easily turn into the field and that will slow down the car quickly.

Answer 3

1- Begin pumping the brake pedal, you may be able to build up enough pressure in the parking system to slow down a bit, or even stop completely. If you have antilock brakes, you do not normally pump them, but if your breaks have failed, this may work.

2- Do not panic, relax and steer the car smoothly, cars will often safely corner at speeds much higher than you realize or are used to driving. The rear of the car may slip, so steer evenly, being careful not to overcorrect, shift the car into a lower gear" or the lowest if needed" and let the engine and transmission slow you down, however shifting to a certain lower gear depends on your speed, I mean if you are driving fast and shifted the car to the lowest gear, the car may stop stronger than if you are driving at lower speed so be careful.

3- Pull the hand brake, but not too hard. Pulling too hard on the hand brake will cause the rear wheels to lock and then car to spin around. Use even, constant pressure. In most cars, the hand brake (the emergency brake or parking brake) is cable operated and serves as a fail-safe brake that should work even when the rest of the braking system has failed. The car should slow down and, in combination with the lower gear, eventually stop.

4- Blow your horn and flash your lights to get the driver's attention, you don't want to crash into a much slower-moving or stopped vehicle as this is more dangerous than hitting a car with a similar speed, however, you may have no choice, but at least try to hit it square, bumper to bumper, so you don not knock the other vehicle off the road, anyway this is an extremely dangerous maneuver.

Answer 4

Take your foot off of the accellerator and let the engine drag slow the vehicle as much as possible.  Then pull, gently on the hand brake if you have one available, or press on the emergency brake pedal, also gently, at first to bring the car to a safe stop.

ALL cars, not just new ones have parking brakes, for, at least, the last fifty years and more.  Any responisble car owner should make sure all brake systems are in good repair.

Turning off the engine is NOT a good idea, especially as most cars have power assisted steering.  Putting the car in neutral would not be an option until the car has slowed down to nearly a stop.  A better option would be to gear down, a step at a time, eventually to the lowest gear.

Meanwhile, consider that side swiping other vehicles and other obstacles will help slow down your vehicle and is much preferred over hitting something head on.  Landscaping features and undergrowth at the side of the road will also help slow the car down.

Answer 5

I have had my brakes fail in a 105,500 pound semi truck, while going down a very steep hill. There is probably nothing more scary than something of this nature happening to you. In order to stop I ground the right side of my truck against the hill until the truck st oped fortunately there was no traffic around and i didn't to a large amount of damage to the truck. my only advice is to try to remain as calm as possible and look for "soft things" to hit.

Answer 6

On a motorway/dual carriageway, put it in neutral and roll onto the hard shoulder. Be prepared to use engine braking and (when you're going slow enough) the handbrake.

If you need to stop quickly DO NOT USE THE HANDBRAKE TILL YOU HAVE SLOWED ALMOST TO A STOP or it will overheat and have very little effect. Use engine braking as far as you can.

Answer 7

Use your emergency brake...that's what it is for...emergencies.  You can also slow your speed by swiping on parked cars, trash cans, walls, buildings.  Anything that will produce friction to the car and decrease it's speed.   Down shift if your car if manual.  Turn uphill if possible.

Sandy

Answer 8

You take your foot off the gas, put the car in nuetral, (don't turn off the key) and apply the emergency brake..

You roll it onto the shoulder, call AAA for a tow truck...

Answer 9

This is virtually impossible, as all cars these days have a dual brake system, two wheels on one and two on the other.

Worry about something that's LIKELY to happen. You will NEVER see this happen.

P.S.

SURE, it happened to "someone" you know. B.S.

Answer 10

JUMP OUT!!!!!!!! hahahaha

Answer 11

Throw it into low range, try the emergency brake, shut of the ignition without locking the steering.

Cry, curse, hang on and see what happens!

Answer 12

shift down and turn the car left and right kinda hard only if there is no trafice cuz turning hard slowes down your car a bit but if there is trafic the shift down and hope u dont hit the guy in front of u lol

Answer 13

THIS IS SO HIGHLY UNLIKELY TO HAPPEN TODAY,UNLESS YOU WERE DRIVING ONE OF MY OLD CLUNKERS YEARS AGO, EVERYONE HERE HAS GIVEN GOOD ADVICE IF SOMETHING DID HAPPEN,BUT BELIEVE ME IF IT HAPPENS EVERYTHING IS SO FAST YOU BARELY HAVE TIME TO SAY TWO WORDS, OH  ****  !

Answer 14

Like they teach you Drivers Ed class.  Pull the emergency lever on the emergency brake and hold it than tap the peddle gently.