I believe the answer is: It takes less distance to steer out of the path of danger than to brake
When you hit your brake, what you do is you initiate the process of deceleration from your current speed to the point where your vehicles is no longer moving. Which mean that before your car actually stop, it would still be dragged on a certain distance but on a slower speed. Steer out the path does not require any time to decelerate.
