How to stop your car safely when there is a brake failure?

Sunday late afternoon – When I was driving down with family from Valluvarkottam heading back to home @ Velachery, just near Habibullah road, I realized that my brakes were not working. Fortunately I was in a very slow speed. I pumped my brakes, so sometimes it worked and sometimes it did not. Family had a little panic, but I was cool and calm. Slow and steady I stopped the vehicle in a silent street in Habibullah Road.

Here, I need to eat my own dog food, when there is no food!! 🙂 I opened Breakdown Mobile App and I was able to reach out to a car mechanic and got the help I needed. All safe and good. We all went back home via a taxi, after an ibaco ice cream time. Remember, it is Sunday late afternoon. That means – all shops are closed and no garages work this time, because this is the time they take off or even get drunk and sleep 🙂 (Apologize, if I generalized, but in many cases it happens). The fault is – Brake Booster Assembly and that has to be replaced.

Anyway, I went home and researched on how to stop safe, when your brakes fail suddenly. Some safety tips are here –

1) Do not panic, when such thing happens. Being cool will help handle the situation.
2) Take off your leg from the accelerator
3) Down shift your gears to lowest gear (say 1st gear)
4) Apply hand brake
5) Pump your leg brake, and that helps sometimes to get back the brake.
6) Switch ON your Emergency lamp
7) Open your windows and alert other drivers, if all the above does not work to a slow stop
8) Look for a safe place to slow down and stop
9) If possible, move to a rougher surface or slight inclination to stop
10) If all does not work, Slowly touch or do a slight hit with a tree or something similar and stop.

Make your judgement and Be safe and keep the road safe!! Have a Safe Driving!!!

Emergency Roadside Assistance Market in India

find a mechanic in the vehicle breakdown situation in India

In “Emergency Roadside Assistance” market in India as on date, there are startups coming up with apps past 1 to 2 years (crossroads helpline, helponwheels, strandd, mericar etc.,) for Emergency Roadside assistance, but they don’t have the massive India wide network like the major offline players like myTVS, Allianz, CARNATION, MAPFRE, EURO/INDIA ASSISTANCE, TLC Assist, AXA Assistance etc., and other few. This mobile app will be a good value addition for the offline majors mentioned above and an additional strength for it’s business. That is a combination of the strength of the offline major network/business and also the advantage of latest technology/startup. Sooner, the offline majors adopt the app, it would be better and not to have the possibility of any startup overtake the majors.

Please contact us if you need more details!

Honk in USA – on demand mobile app for roadside assistance – tow, tyre change, jump start, fuel and lock out services

honk – mobile app

HONK is the on-demand mobile app for tow, tire change, jump start, fuel and lock out services from more than 20,000 tow trucks nationwide 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. HONK’s faster ETAs and “Guaranteed Never to Exceed” prices, which start at just $49 without membership fees or limitations, offer motorists an alternative to outdated membership-based motor clubs. The HONK app is free to use and available on iOS, Android, or the web. HONK was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Santa Monica, California.

honk for help dot com is the website you might want to check out more.

please note – honk app is not related to breakdown app, but this information is shared for audience’s interest and for the knowledge about other providers like us, in other geographical locations like USA.

BreakDown Mobile app is only available in India and it is the FREE mobile app for Emergency Roadside Assistance in India.

Remember to check car jack in car, before a long drive in India

car-jack

Before you start your car for a long drive, don’t forget to check if the car has couple of important things –
(i) Car jack and (ii) the spare tyre with air in it.

Any car tyre problems can be handled, if the car jack is present in the car.
In fact, it is better not to remove the car jack out of the car, unless needed. Even if you used it or helped someone else, make sure you put it back into the back of the car.

Another thing is Spare tyre to be checked, every time you fill in air for other running tyres.

Any mechanic who attends any car breakdowns, they would usually bring the car jack, but just in case, if the mechanic does not have the car jack, it is better to keep such tools in the car itself. These small stuff can get you going at least to a safe place, instead of getting stuck on the road.

Current situation of Emergency roadside assistance in India

find a mechanic in the vehicle breakdown situation in India

In terms of roadside assistance, there is a lot of awareness in foreign countries, but there is not much awareness in our country India. In fact, there was a less a need as such.

However, now there are highways across the country north to south, west to east as national highways and there are state highways and local roads, which might or might not be closely accessible to mechanics in India. Also, there is increase in number of Car ownership and number of taxis in the country, which has increased the number of cars and car ownership in the country and also increase in highways. This situation absolutely makes the need of Emergency roadside assistance in India.

Back in 2000 to 2010, many talked about emergency roadside assistance, when we were aware of AAA in US and many other similar services in other european countries, but no one stepped up do a similar service during that time.

Around 2010, there started a service called MeriCAR (funded now), which started their service and spanned across the country and they work on club membership model and we can get the service accordingly.

Lately, there are specific local services per city – like CrossRoads IA, RESCUE Vehicle Services Private Ltd, Rescue First dot in, India roadside assistance, Allianz Global Assistance, HelpOnWheels dot in etc.,

We cannot ignore CARNATION, MyTVS and similar others in this article. Since they have already great network across India, they are doing great service in the country. In addition, car dealers themselves provide the roadside assistance as value added service as part of their Insurance package – many go with that itself and get satiated and never think about additional ERSA service in India. In addition, there is MAPFRE ASSISTANCE (india assistance/europ assistance).

In past 2 years, there had been n number of mobile apps, which has come up with the same concept, but using the spatial concept showing the map and locating the mechanic etc., which is good improvement as well to the industry/market.

There is more improved services expected in this space, in order to completely rule the market. This market space is not completely capitalized by anybody yet, but it is all spread across sporadic. Probably, once there is more awareness that it is absolutely needed for any car owner, there will be huge drive to purchase the membership.

Having said all of that, BreakDown is a FREE mobile app across the country to download in (BreakDown Assistance) iOS and Android (Breakdown BETA). (with help across the country). If you could not find any help anywhere in the country, when you needed, please let us know the area!!