For the gentle souls out there, smooth braking technique is one of the things that, once mastered, will make your ride so much less irritating. You know? Those jerky halts that make you feel so uncomfortable, and the accompanying stress you place on yourself to try and get it perfect?

Well, there’s always hope…and a few tips.

Here’s how it goes down:

One thing that will undoubtedly affect your braking technique is the level of driving skill that you’re at. This means that you’d do well to focus on the basic braking skill that is necessary to keep you safe and manage to stop when required to do so, for starters - then only move on to honing the rough edges for that “perfect” stop.

OK, so let’s say you’ve practiced like a demon and have good control over your vehicle, know when to slow down, and when to stop.

Here’s where it gets interesting… sometimes braking is just not meant to be a fixation on technique for comfort.

When you place your foot on the brake pedal and start pressing it nothing much happens for a while and all of a sudden it feels like you’re going to launch through the windscreen as your car seems to shove its nose down and comes to that jerky stop, right? The thing to remember is that your brakes are controlled by pressure, specifically the effectiveness and efficiency of such pressure.

Now don’t get fooled into thinking that braking is a set routine action that has a consistent application with a consistent result either. What do I mean? There are various factors that affect your braking. Speed, gravity, road surface type, road surface condition, condition of the brakes, and vehicle dynamics, to mention a few.

What you want to keep in mind is that your body adapts to conditions very quickly - humans are just truly amazing beings that way. No, seriously. our bodies adapt to many things, even the height of a toilet seat. You know?

Remember that time when you thought you were still busy sitting and you already sat, or the time when it felt like a millennium before your butt reached the seat? Simple - seats higher or lower than what you body is accustomed to at home will have these effects.

It’s really like the body has a I CAN DO THIS Library. Little things like which arm goes first when putting on a jacket, which foot gives the first stride when getting off a chair, where exactly “C” is in your keyboard, where exactly “C” is on an organs foot pedal, where exactly the brake pedal is in your car…little things we no longer give any conscious attention once it’s in the body’s library. Fascinating, isn’t it?

So, when your average speed on a driving lesson is 40km/h, your body adapts its reactions to that speed and braking becomes a familiar notch on the pedal. The first time you then travel at 60km/h, your foot will want to apply the same pressure on the pedal and expect the same result. BIG surprise awaits….until once again the body adapts.

Gravity also comes into play, more often than you realise. It’s not so much just going up or down a steep hill alone where gravity does its best work; it will surprise you even on a seemingly flat surface, specially if you often practice in a territory with many inclines where a flat surface can be very deceptive. Your car doesn’t know the difference in gradient between Mount Everest and The Karoo, it just knows that a mere few degrees already gives it an opportunity to get away from your control and roll. The handbrake is your friend - leave nothing to chance!

You ever stopped waaaaaaaaaaaaay short of the line at an intersection which was also on an incline? You just got your sync between speed and gravity wrong. So you took your foot completely off the accelerator and started to brake, right? Yip - but all too early, and you used the same braking technique as for a flat surface.

Adapting your technique to the particular car you drive is imperative!

CAR 1: Relatively hard pedal, which may seemingly delay stopping if used to another vehicle.
CAR 2: Soft pedal with more directly detectable braking power, which may seemingly increase erratic stops.

What you want to do is to adapt your pedal pressure to maintain a consistent technique. What I mean by this is: DO NOT EVER leave your braking till later in CAR 2 just because it feels like it brakes sharper or you end up further from your destined stop. In doing it this way, you are 80% more likely to have an accident when driving CAR 1 again because your body adapted to a weaker pressure on the braking pedal, over and above the fact that you would leave braking late, you’d have very little time to react to correct the pressure, let alone the effects.

TIP: When you practice and switch between two cars (or God Forbid a few), NEVER assume that you know exactly how much pressure will get you the perfect result - your body may have momentarily forgotten and needs refreshing. Always take the first few braking sessions easy and allow some time for comfortably adapting - that means more speed will get you into bigger trouble sooner with more dramatic results.

Nuff said.

So how does the smooth braking thing work?

Braking actually only starts when you can FEEL it happening; when you can FEEL yourself slowing down.
Apply most force in the beginning and let up on the brake bit-by-bit as you approach your destination.
There is a difference between slowing down and stopping - smooth technique requires a combination.

PLEASE take care and Happy Braking now, you hear!