As someone who drove a car once in their lifetime, it’s common that we have slammed on the brakes. It’s rare to find anyone who didn’t brake hard under any circumstances.
Now, we have to slam the brakes now and then but what problems do we face braking too hard at a high speed and how can we fix them?
The situations we have to pull a hard brake typically are someone or something suddenly coming in front of our cars, the green lights in traffic signals turning red while we are speeding at a considerable rate, and other scenarios.
Then, how should we interact with the car when we are at high speed and need to pull a brake. Let’s get to an in-depth description down below about the situations we went through braking too hard at a high speed and how to deal with them.
Is hard braking bad for cars?
Braking is necessary to avoid road disasters and accidents. Although braking is often harmful to our cars. How does that work?
The most usual damages we would see are overheating of rotors, creating hotspots, glazing, and excessive level of runout.
The brake pads are the ones that will wear out first among all of the parts in your car. When you brake hard, it weighs a toll upon the car and the car is most likely to take more stress than usual. It results in car parts breaking down quicker than usual.
So, if someone ever explains to you why hard braking is not bad for your cars, shut them up with the things we’ve provided you.
What happens if you brake at high speeds?
Well, we’ve come to know why we have to brake hard and does it affects our cars or not. Now, let’s see what will happen if we brake at high speeds.
Well, first of all, it does hurt the car’s rotors and damages every part of the car by putting a lot of pressure on them. We’ve covered them up in the upper sector. If you skipped that, you can always scroll up to read them.
The next hard braking affect is the anti-lock system. Nearly every car has an ABS or what we called earlier an anti-lock system. To ensure our safety, it allows the car not to get locked while driving and lets it always skid on the road.
But when we hard brake more often, it triggers the ABS. Continuous hard braking will result in wearing out the ABS. And once it wears out, our safety is compromised and so are our wallets.
When we slam the brake pads, brake fluid comes out of the brake hoses in order to stop the car. But when we hit the brake pads now and then too hard, it will cause the brake hoses to get cracked. Once they are cracked, we will get an inconsistent amount of brake fluid coming out of the brake hoses.
And of course, people often get thrown out of their cars for hard braking at a high speed. This causes a lot of road accidents and horrific scenes on the road. You might have seen how racers got thrown away and get killed on MotoGP race tracks. Then, how can you fix these problems? You have to learn how to brake while speeding.
How to brake at high speed?
Alright, till now we got to know how hard braking hampers our cars and of course, us. Right now, we will be knowing how we can brake when we are speeding.
As braking at high speed seems like a hard job for us, it’s not that hard at all. The one trick we need to use is applying steady pressure.
Hard braking occurs when we slam the brake pads suddenly with a lot of pressure. We already know how it goes when we do that. So how should we apply the pressure when we are at a high speed?
The fundamentals of driving a car are placing a foot always on the brake pad. Some people tend to hit the accelerator pad and the brake pad with the same single foot. It’s not wrong to do so but takes more time to commit to the brakes.
We have to put constant pressure on the brake pads. Reducing the pressure won’t harm but won’t do well either. And suddenly increasing the pressure after a constant pressure will end up in a hard brake.
So slow down the car steadily with constant pressure, that’s the trick you need to use while braking at a high speed.
Can hard braking damage transmission?
Hard braking will weigh a toll on your entire car. The transmission won’t be spared from the wrath of hard braking.
When you brake hard, the transmission mounts are most likely to get cracked. The solenoid and gearbox should be safe. Transmission mounts getting cracked is a concern for safety measurements.
Transmissions are used for changing between your gears. If it gets damaged or stuck, you are no longer enable to change your gears. Transmission stuck on 3rd gear can be a horrific experience while driving, you know. Although you can fix your transmission when it gets stuck in 3rd pretty easily.
Road Accidents due to hard braking
According to NHTSA, there is a 12% increase in people getting killed in trucks causing accidents due to brake failure at a high speed. There have been 4,761 victims in those accidents in 2019, whereas, in 2008, the number was only 4,245.
Brake failures cause 5% of the car accidents in the United States on average every year. The number of car crashes in the US is about 5.6 million per year. As per the statistics, the brake failure accidents stand at 300,000 every year.
Last words
As you are here curious about the problems caused by braking too hard at a high speed and how you can fix those specific problems, right?
Sometimes, it becomes a habit and we can’t stop our cars normally anymore. We would like to suggest that you cultivate the habit to put steady pressure to brake our cars even if we are not at a high speed. Otherwise, you will end up getting yourself seriously injured.
