It's confusing alright:
The word "break" relates to broke/broken(when something fails or comes apart)
The word "brake" is the equipment on a vehicle to slow it down, or stop it.
The term "breakaway brake system" relates to the safety equipment that comes into play when/if the hitch fails or jumps off the ball, whenever you're towing a trailer or a vehicle.
I had to look it up,....a long time ago.
So, what's satisfying to me in this case is that while the hitch is talked about as being overloaded (its design load limit exceeded), it did NOT fail. It looks more like a simple case of operator error due to negligence or ignorance or both.
