Luckily I discovered that using the cable brake on the cars I drove made them uncontrollable before I got into an emergency. I ruled that out once I did a full 360 at 5 mph on a regular road,
I learned to emergency stop on the transmission. Slow down on the gears and eventually fuck it up dropping it into park
So, yeah, pulling the e-brake hard on the highway can be… exciting, which is generally not what you want in an emergency situation.
This was more of a case of: welp, I’m 10 miles from home and I have a choice: pull over and arrange for a tow truck, or proceed with all due caution on the safest possible routes and get it home without wasting many hours of my time and hundreds of my dollars on the tow.
Now, when the fuel line got chewed by squirrels and a gasoline spray-fountain was emerging from the wheel well… yeah, towtruck time. But bad brakes? Depends on the situation, many situations can be safely handled with the “performance level” you get from cable brakes on the rear wheels.
Oh, one tip should you ever try using the parking brake to stop while rolling: make sure you know how to release it and keep the ability to release it engaged whenever applying the brakes while moving. If you let it latch up, you’re gonna be a passenger not a driver.
I have driven home more than once using the cable brake backup after a hydraulic failure.
I also have owned vehicles where the heat-based pads and rotors system overheated and severely lost braking ability after a single stop from 70mph.
Luckily I discovered that using the cable brake on the cars I drove made them uncontrollable before I got into an emergency. I ruled that out once I did a full 360 at 5 mph on a regular road,
I learned to emergency stop on the transmission. Slow down on the gears and eventually fuck it up dropping it into park
So, yeah, pulling the e-brake hard on the highway can be… exciting, which is generally not what you want in an emergency situation.
This was more of a case of: welp, I’m 10 miles from home and I have a choice: pull over and arrange for a tow truck, or proceed with all due caution on the safest possible routes and get it home without wasting many hours of my time and hundreds of my dollars on the tow.
Now, when the fuel line got chewed by squirrels and a gasoline spray-fountain was emerging from the wheel well… yeah, towtruck time. But bad brakes? Depends on the situation, many situations can be safely handled with the “performance level” you get from cable brakes on the rear wheels.
Oh, one tip should you ever try using the parking brake to stop while rolling: make sure you know how to release it and keep the ability to release it engaged whenever applying the brakes while moving. If you let it latch up, you’re gonna be a passenger not a driver.