Arrangements of the kind referred to are well known in the art. The plungers are intended for cooperation with the ends of brake shoes brakingly engaging a rotating brake drum of the vehicle. Numerous examples from the patent literature could be given; just one and rather typical example is DE-B-23 56 075.
A well known drawback with presently known wedge brakes of the above mentioned type is the uneven distribution of brake forces and brake lining wear resulting from the facts that--depending on the direction of rotation for the wheel to be braked--one of the brake shoes is "leading" and the other one "trailing" and that the wedge brake arrangement as described is "floating" and is unable to control the proper distribution of the forces to the respective brake shoe.