Continuous braking when going downhill - a fatal mistake of drivers
Driving on steep mountain passes is always a challenge for drivers, especially for new drivers. Therefore, drivers must master the techniques to drive safely on steep mountain passes.
There are many cases of brake failure when going downhill in Vietnam, causing serious accidents. And especially, accidents when going downhill often happen to heavy vehicles such as trucks and passenger cars, causing great casualties.
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| Accidents caused by passenger buses losing their brakes on mountain passes often cause great casualties. |
For heavy trucks, the inertia of the vehicle during movement is very large. Therefore, during braking, the brake pads must create extremely large frictional force to overcome the entire inertia of the vehicle. This frictional force between the brake pads and the brake disc creates a large amount of heat, causing the surface of the brake pads and the brake disc to heat up to hundreds of degrees Celsius. When the temperature increases, the frictional force simultaneously decreases, to a point where the brake pads completely slip and are almost ineffective.
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| The brake disc surface is red hot after continuous friction with the brake disc. |
Some drivers often apply the brake pedal to reduce the speed of the car when going downhill, but that is completely wrong. With long mountain passes, applying the brake continuously will cause the brake to heat up quickly and may at some point lose its effectiveness, causing the car to roll freely downhill.
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| Continuous braking causes the vehicle to lose control, roll freely on the pass and cause an accident. |
Instead of continuously applying the brakes to reduce speed when going downhill, the driver must use the braking force of the vehicle's engine to reduce speed. This is done by shifting the gear lever to a lower gear. According to the advice of experts with a lot of experience in cars, when going downhill, the driver should use the same or lower gear than the gear used when driving uphill. The braking force of the vehicle's engine in a lower gear is much more effective than the braking system. The driver must shift to a lower gear before going downhill, because once the vehicle has rolled downhill at high speed, the driver cannot control the gear shift anymore.
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| Drivers should shift to lower gears before going downhill. |
For automatic transmission vehicles, the driver needs to switch to manual gear shifting mode, marked D1, D2 ... or (+) and (-) depending on the vehicle type to reduce the vehicle's gear to a lower gear. In addition, some vehicles are also equipped with paddle shifters on the steering wheel to increase or decrease gears, the driver needs to carefully refer to the user manual to handle when necessary.
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| For automatic transmission vehicles, the driver needs to switch to (+), (-) mode to shift to lower gear. |
If it is necessary to use the brakes, the driver should brake firmly to bring the vehicle speed back to a safe level and not continuously apply the brakes.
