I’ve only been involved with one brake fail incident thankfully. It had all the classic symptoms, travelling quicker than I should have been to make a deadline, the route was over the North York Moors heading to the small coastal town of Sleights near Whitby so it was gentle touches on the brake pedal down the hills but not too much so I wouldn’t lose much power and speed up the hills, the exhaust brake on my oldish Sed Aki 401 wasn’t working but no problem things were going ok.
That is until I approached the run in to the very steep Blue Bank that led into the town, early sign warning of this was enough for me to start slowing to a respectable speed to negotiate this, again careful braking until I realised the old tub wasn’t slowing as much as I’d like, just then the warning buzzer came on and a glance at the gauges showed the needles way down, oh oh keep calm brake a little harder there is still some air enough to slow right down, no there isn’t foot is flat to the floor nowt is happening speed around 40mph as a guess although I wasn’t concentrating on that for the moment, ok Secondary on slowly allow the spring brakes to apply some pressure, blimey doesn’t seem like much happening and now on the last flat stretch before the road dissapeared down that bank. Left the parkbrake fully on now and started running the wheels along the kerb up and down, its slowing, yes it is slower slower and stopped. Buzzer going like hell, foot still glued to the pedal strong smell of burning linings, legs like jelly and heart somewhere in my mouth and about ten yards from a decent into something I didn’t want to dwell on.
The vehicle wasn’t going anywhere, the air wouldn’t rebuild even after a long period to ensure all had cooled down, a passing Policeman stopped to enquire if I had problems, I didn’t give him the whole tale but he was extremely grateful I’d got the thing stopped I guess he didn’t want the sort of busy morning he would have got if things didn’t work out, he had known it before. The nearest dealer mechanic came out and had to change the airdryer it was choked and the system was full of gunge which he couldn’t do much about at least I got full air again and was able to carry on, I’ve never gone down a hill so slowly in my life and noted the twists and turns which I would never have been able to get around with a runaway.
That wasn’t the end of the story once back in the workshop the fitter listed the situation with the brakes, center steer axle on the unit and a trailer axle doing nothing, other brakes out of adjustment and in poor condition anyway resulting in a combination of brake fade and no brake. What with this, the road I was on and my hurried pace it was a recipe for disaster, the brake system as a whole was in a shocking state and this whole episode was a huge learning experience. Being a Fitter doing a spell of driving as some do, I was more annoyed with myself and realised I got into the mode some drivers get into, jump into the wagon in the morning and out again at the end of the day and as long as the deliveries were done ok there wasn’t much else to worry about. I took a lot more interest in the hidden condition of my vehicles after this, however some drivers have no mechanical knowledge of the vehicle they are driving and what may be happening to the parts they can’t see, quite rightly where brakes are concerned this should be left to the maintenance department and unfortunately in some operations this is where things fall flat and the opportunities for events to go wrong multiply.
Again I can’t speculate if this kind of scenario happened to the driver of the tipper but I know the feeling when everything is applied and nothing is slowing you, I’ll give him credit for one thing he stayed with the vehicle, my drivers door handle was coming into my mind if things didn’t change for the better, not something I would like to repeat. Franky.
) way to unlearn all the bs they’ve been fed in that regard concerning brakes to slow gears to go.
