Back when I was a teen there was an old guy in our neighborhood that road an older model Triumph branded rod brake bike, and his back up ride was a Royal Enfield, also with rod brakes. The Royal Enfield was a lot older. Every inch of that bike was painted vs chrome. I rode it once, and my first experience on a rod brake bike nearly face planted me. He had a third bike, that was made in India, with twin top tubes and rod brakes. It wasn't new but it was a newer bike that he had brought home from a trip he took.

I had gone gone there that day because I had just laced up a wheel for my Schwinn and wanted him to true the wheel for me. As in most cases he pointed me to the truing stand and told me to figure it out. While working on truing my wheel I had asked him about the rod brakes and he told me to take the Indian made bike for a quick ride. He told me to 'get used to the brakes, they don't stop like a modern bike', I hopped on it and road it up and down his driveway a few times to get the feel of it. He said take it around the block, 'you won't break it, those things are like tanks' were his exact words. I proceeded to take it out of his driveway to go around the block.
I was nearly about to turn back into his driveway, when I laid into the brakes a bit and the next thing I know I'm on my back on the road with the bike on top of me.

What had happened was the front brake stirrup had snapped. It broke off at the very bottom of the rod It then somehow turned into the spokes with half of it in the spokes, the other half above the fender and as it caught it dug in pulling the fender down into the tire. As the spokes pulled it forward, the stirrup spread out but didn't give way and it locked the front wheel. When I picked up the bike, the fender's rear brace was pulled up against the back of the fork, and the front of the fender was sticking almost straight up pulled forward about a foot or so. I was barely moving when it happened, and he had watched it.

Then he tells me those stirrups had broken before, and then points out a few other repairs and welds on that bike.
It was likely fine for his 80 year old self but for me the thing just snapped. Its made me leery of rod brakes ever since.