not exactly sure what the question is, but here are a few comments:

i suppose your forward inertia as the van stopped could have caused your
foot to momentarily press even harder on the pedal, until it slipped off,
but unless you broke a bone or got hurt pushing on the pedal, how hard
could you have pushed?

the braking forces on the pads, rotors and drums are limited by the
friction between the tires and road, so nothing unusual there. i guess
hydraulic components could have been stressed, but i think that is far
fetched unless your leg was injured, or you bent the brake lever.

if the van did sustain damage other than the obvious, it will probably be
unanticipated, and not likely something divined a-priori.

dlk

On Sat, 7 Feb 2004 22:35:07 -0700, Robert Lilley <wolfvan88@COX.NET> wrote:

>Somebody cut right in front of me going much slower and POW I clipped the
>right front of my front bumper on their left rear bumper.   Fortunately my
>bumper was hit right on the bolt holding it on, square in his bumper.  I
>will crawl around and look for other damage.
>
>I now will have the pleasure of meeting with insurance companies of AZ :(
>We will see how it goes.
>
>One question:
>If you had your foot on the brake, braking hard and the force of the hit
>caused your foot to come off and hit the firewall, could that additional
>stress, stress the braking system and now cause it to fail early?
>All parts are less than 3 years old.
>
>
>
>Robert
>
>What, did you think I was going to talk about my engine?????