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There are a couple of pretty good answers in [How to make a cargo trailer?](https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/1256/how-to-make-a-cargo-trailer).  After looking at those, at [the answer to What are the safety concerns of a high vs a low mount trailer hitch?](https://outdoors.codidact.com/questions/74970) and doing some other research, it seems that heavy trailers have significant safety issues around braking.  

All the references I found so far indicate solutions that involve disconnecting the bike's rear brake and connecting the cable to trailer brakes.  This solution has issues of its own (mainly around not going to the trouble).  

There is common solution often used on rental automotive trailers, called a surge brake.

![Surge Brake image][1]

When the tow vehicle slows down, the trailer pushes against the vehicle and that force applies the trailer brakes. In automotive solutions this is done with hydraulics.

After thinking about this a while, and noticing there are many inexpensive used kids bikes with manually applied brakes integrated in the rear wheel.

Are there any proven approaches to using surge braking on bike trailers, either with used bike parts or with new purpose constructed parts? 

[1]: //i.stack.imgur.com/KKrhT.gif