How to stop a car in 8 seconds if the brake fails? [video]

By Ajeesh Kuttan

Losing the brakes on a car while driving can be one of the worst nightmare one can have, especially when one is driving at high speed. These situations can be quite dangerous if the driver is not familiar with the techniques of stopping the vehicle in such a situation. There can be number of reasons why something like this would happen in a car. The brake wire might just snap or the master cylinder might leak which would result in losing all the pressure required to apply the brakes. There are several techniques to stop a vehicle in such a situation but, here we have a video that shows one of the most efficient and safest way to do it.

The video has been uploaded by Knowledge Kingdom on his youtube channel. The video shows an efficient way of stopping a car that has lost brakes in just 8 seconds. Almost all the mass segment cars sold in the country get a manual hand brake. In case, the driver finds that he has lost the brakes, he should try to stay calm and first thing he needs to do is to remove his foot from the accelerator pedal. Then he or she should pull the handbrake mid-way (halfway up). If he pulls it fully up, then it might lock the rear wheels and driver will lose control.

Once he has pulled the handbrake mid-way, he can slowly start down shifting the gears one by one. Make sure that you do not skip any gears. For example, never skip from 5th to 3rd. Go from 5th to 4th and then to 3rd. Down shifting like this will help driver stop the car using the handbrake and the engine braking. Following the process allows the car to rapidly shed speed.

Using this method, the driver can bring down the car to a halt from about 60 kmph in about 8 seconds. If the speed is any higher, the time required will be more. In case, the driver is running out of space to do all this, he can try to avoid other vehicles and objects on the road and can simply guide the car to the shoulder and hit the side rails or bushes to slow down the car. This is meant to be used as a last resort.

After the Indian government announced one of the harshest lockdowns in India in March, the sales of automobiles become zero for the following month. However, with the lockdown rules getting relaxed, the automobile sales data show the demand slowly rising in the market. However, MG Motor India President and MD Rajeev Chaba says that the recovery in the past couple of months is not sustainable.

Mr Chaba made the statement to during an interview. With the reopening of the markets after the lockdown, the sales have picked up since month-on-month. After posting a decent sales number in June, the sales have gradually increased and is expected to further rise with the festive season around the corner.

None of the automobile manufacturers was able to sell many units during the April to June and even the production was stopped. However, the sales are slowly coming back to the level of August and September 2019 sales figures.

Chaba further said that the sales numbers will depend on the economy of the country. The automobile industry is vastly linked with the economy of the country and vice versa. Auto industry helps the economy and economic growth helps the auto industry.

India’s leading automobile manufacturers Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai posted double-digit growth in the market while manufacturers like Tata Motors, Honda Cars India, Skoda Auto India, Kia India posted robust growth in the September sales. Mahindra and Toyota posted a slight decline in sales.

Rajeev Chaba also said that they are back to about 80% of the pre-COVID demand level. The brand is doing about 3,000 cars per month right now and there are about 9,000 pre-bookings for the Hector and the ZS EV. MG launched the new Hector Plus and will soon launch the all-new Gloster in the market. ( Carton )