Free fall safety brakes against accidental cable failure such as in elevators may require friction, wedging action, eddy current, and other effects. An ideal safety brake system should be quick in its deployment with sufficient payload capacity in compact dimensions. In this study, a safety braking system with a quick deployment mechanism is proposed. The mechanism housed in a carrier is suspended by the cable and connected to the payload. At the onset of cable failure, a linkage system is driven by a pre-loaded spring to drive terminal cutting tools tips against the sacrificial braking pads on each side of the vertical track. Experiments showed that large braking force may be achieved by a compact mechanism. Several design issues of linkage deployment, braking force control, and drop dynamics are discussed.