Another important braking system which all the vehicles are equipped with is the emergency braking system or parking brake. This system controls the rear brakes through a series of cables made in steel, which are connected to either a hand lever or a foot pedal.  The concept behind the emergency braking system is that with the fully mechanical system, it can completely bypass the hydraulic system so that the vehicle can be brought to a stop in case of a total brake failure. This is done by a cable that pulls on a lever mounted in the rear brake and is directly connected to the brake shoes on the drum brakes. This effectively bypasses the wheel cylinder and controls the brakes directly.

If the vehicles braking system uses disc brakes on the rear wheels, it adds to complication with the emergency braking system. Some of the emergency braking systems use the existing rear wheel caliper and put in a lever attached to a mechanical corkscrew device within the caliper piston.  When the emergency brake cables pull on this lever, this corkscrew pushes the piston touching the pads, thereby bypassing the hydraulic system, to stop the vehicle.  This type of system is primarily used with single piston floating calipers, and if the caliper is of the four piston fixed type then this system is not functional and is not used.  Some of the systems use a mechanical drum brake assembly mounted inside the rear rotor. Brake shoes on this system are attached to a lever that is pulled by the emergency brake cable to trigger the brakes. In this system, the brake drum is the inside part of the rear brake rotor.