On Sun, 19 Feb 2017 08:58:25 -0800 (PST), DerbyDad03
wrote:


The daughter of a co-worker recently drove her boyfriend's pick-up into a
utility pole - by choice.

She was driving downhill towards a red light at a very busy intersection.
She applied the brake and the pedal went right to the floor. Being a fairly
young driver (18) and in her first real emergency situation, her first thought
wasn't to try the emergency brake, it was to *not* go through the red light.

She chose the pole instead, which did a real good job of stopping the truck.
Poor kid. She had to quit high school sports because of multiple concussions
and then suffered a serious one during the accident.

Total instant brake failure is more likely to be a bad master cyl
than a blown line - unless the brakes are also WAY out of adjustment
(to the point the pedal was "seriously" low) previous to the failure.

If the rear drum brakes are "loose as a goose" and a front line goes
south, there is not enough displacement in the master cyl to
effectively apply the rear brakes on the first pump. (and then the
rear brakes on an unloaded Pickup truck going downhill are not going
to be anything close to effective in stopping the vehicle anyway)
The properly functionig rear brakes on my 21 year old Ranger are
still original, and about half lining left when I checked them last
fall - at 350,000km while the front pads are set#3 (and now running on
oversized 11 inch rotors) - so you know the rears are not doing a heck
of a lot of work - and mine has several hundred pounds of cap and
bed-liner)