"If the brakes stop working then you're in trouble (and so is everybody within striking distance), but brakes failing due to a software bug that you induced is

"If the brakes stop working then you're in trouble (and so is everybody within striking distance), but brakes failing due to a software bug that you induced is a thing that I've yet to come across. Most brake systems have mechanical back-up, and if all that fails you can still reach for the 'oh-shit' lever, aka the emergency brake. Anybody that has ever had a master cylinder fail on them knows what I mean." My Volkswagen has one of the electronic parking brake systems, so I don't have an ohshitlever. I have an electrically powered button that is probably useless if there's no power. I could always downshift, since I got the manual transmission. In the future, I doubt most cars will have the old style mechanically controlled parking brakes.