when your brakes fail, can you shift to Reverse in order to stop the vehicle? why or why not?

Question

I’m mostly thinking about a scenario where you are going down a highway (say, at 120kmh for the sake of the example) and suddenly your brakes fail

could shifting to Reverse function as a brake in that situation?

edit: thank you all for the answers, I want to note that I myself don’t drive and did not consider doing this, I was just wondering if this was possible

have a lovely day o/

In: 11

Answer 1

On a manual, you’d like damage the transmission trying to shift into reverse. As stated by others, best bet is to downshift to use engine friction to slowdown.

On older cars, the e brake was typically a pedal thats connected to a steel wire that manually engages the brake. Theoretically, you could slowly press the e brake pedal like a normal brake pedal to slow down. On newer cars, the e brake may sometimes be electronically engaged. I’m not sure how one would use an electronic e brake as a last resort though.