Ever have one of those dreams in which you are driving and you need to stop, but when you step on the brakes, nothing happens? Then you get that warm panic feeling rise up through your spine instantly as time slows to a crawl. Ever have one of those?

Well that just happened to me for real.

I was approaching a stop light at about forty mph in my twelve year old jeep, just as it turned yellow. I had enough room to stop so I took my foot off of the gas and applied some pressure on the brakes. I felt normal pressure in the pedal for just a second before feeling a snap through my foot, followed by the brake pedal dropping all the way to the floor.

I instinctively reached for my e-brake and pulled up on it and began to slow down, but by this time I was already well through the intersection. I took a minute to breath and then limped home with my e-brake.

Thankfully there were no cars anywhere near me or things could have been much worse.