Ask anyone what the most important pedal is in a car and they will probably say the accelerator.

I probably would say that.

If they are a little bit more traditional they might say the clutch. But I think very very few people would say the brake pedal is the most important.

Here I am going to give you three tips on how to improve the use of the brake pedal of your car.

I am going to go on a journey from entry level and basic all the way up to tips as advanced as you can get with braking pretty much. 

The third tip is very Advanced. I don’t recommend many of you to try it, especially not on the road. So take this as your warning if you don’t know what you’re doing. Trail braking can be dangerous. 

So the first tip is that sometimes you just don’t need to brake. Sometimes it can be beneficial to plan a long way ahead and not touch the brakes. 

I can give you some examples of my real life experience.

Sometimes I revved my car at 50 mph and I’ve already lifted and to see all the people’s brake lights come on and I said look one brake light, two brake like, three brake light. Haha.

And if I have timed this perfectly we’re going to go through there at 50 just in time. It shows that you’re a better driver than some of these other people. You have planned ahead in the way they just haven’t. 

Don’t brake 

The benefit of that is number one and the biggest one to be honest is when you’re in gear and you’re off the gas you actually use zero fuel. 

Unbelievable right !

It’s really cool because of engine braking. I noticed that when I looked at my car’s dash at the MPG gauge. What happens to that number when I preemptively lift? That number goes to 99.9 MPG, otherwise known as infinite MPG, because when I’m off the gas and the car is injecting no fuel, we have infinite miles per gallon.

It’s a huge boost to your fuel economy. It avoids wear on your brake pads, which is always good, and it makes your driving better and smoother too.

So, there’s really no reason most people don’t drive like that right now. I have just come off the gas, but I’m not on the brakes because I see this dude making a right turn, and now I am back on the gas again. I didn’t even need to use my brakes.

The second tip—and this one is on the cusp of being a very basic idea, but it has a lot of depth and can really go a long way to improving your braking—so whether you’re a beginner or at the advanced level, make sure you make use of this tip.

squeeze, don’t push

This is the idea that, rather than using the brake pedal as a button or a switch, you squeeze into the pedal progressively.

Here are two examples of applying the brakes:

Firstly, I’m pushing on the brake pedal.

In other examples, I am being progressive and squeezing the brake pedal.

These are just to give you a better idea of the difference between the two. If you just push the brake, you unsettle the balance of the car. At the road corner, when I push it, the balance of the car has to recover from that action.

What you want to do, as I will demonstrate in this corner, is as you’re approaching the corner, you want to just let the brakes bite and then start to build up your pressure. Then, you can accelerate again on the other side by progressively squeezing the brakes.

This means that the suspension of the car has time to settle as you apply the brakes progressively. The suspension loads up on the front wheels, which do the majority of the braking, and allows them to bite into the tarmac harder.

It also just feels so much smoother, nicer, and better. The first application of the brakes should be so gentle that you’re just touching the pad to the disc. Once the pad and the disc make contact, you can start to push into the brakes as hard as you want. But where it really comes into its own is when you need a lot of brake pressure.

When you really need to hammer on the anchors, if you just press the brake pedal, you’ll get into ABS, and you will not get the full value of those brakes.

But if you progressively ease into the pedal, if you just get the pad to touch and then start squeezing, you can actually get 100 percent brake pressure and make sure that they operate at their maximum.

Trail braking

Several times I would talk about trail braking.

While driving, I will go hotter into the next corner so I can share a little bit better. I have just touched the pads, and I know I’m squeezing, squeezing, squeezing, and then I’m off and in. See, I could have combined that with trail braking.

Trail braking is advanced, and it’s cool; not a lot of people fully understand it, so I have some examples here for you to try and improve your knowledge and understanding of that technique.

There is a great way this was once described to me, which is that it’s as simple as this: if you’re still on the brakes when you turn the steering wheel, you are trailing the brakes. The idea is you apply the brakes, you turn the wheel, and then you gradually come off the brakes as you apply more steering.

You have got to brake pretty late. I am braking now, and I am still braking, and now I am off the brakes. The idea is you turn in late—braking now, still braking while I am turning.

This is definitely an advanced concept. It’s also quite dangerous on the road. I have many examples for you. One is here. The corner is the best example I can find of trail braking. It’s a long left-hander, and I am going in at 60 mph, and I want to go around at about 40 mph. So I am not even going to apply the brakes until now, and I am still on the brakes halfway through the corner. To be honest, to get the maximum amount of benefit, you really have to be going a lot faster than I am on some streets. This point is really of maximum benefit if you are on a track; that is the only place where it is very useful, and it gives you an appreciation for the fact that you can actually brake and turn at the same time.

Even though that’s something you’re always told to never ever do—from as early as playing Gran Turismo 4, we were always told to lift off the brake and then turn, with the two actions separate.

But you can combine them, and it is effective. It does work really well. Part of the reason why it works is that when you’re braking, the weight of the car shifts forward onto the wheels that turn. You have more grip technically when you are braking on the front axle. So when you are in the middle of that braking phase and you turn the steering wheel, the bite you get is really quite good. But you are closer to the limit because you are combining those two actions.

So it’s kind of tricky. It’s a give and take.

One more bonus example of trail braking: in a spirited driving situation, braking super late and still turning as I brake. Trail braking is probably the hardest to really show on the road without going silly and absolutely decimating every speed limit, because you really have to be going pretty quickly and driving toward the limit to really get the benefits of trail braking.