You can (and should!) brake and swerve at the same time. Unless you are driving an oldtimer, the car is capable of doing that.
In my driving lessons I got told to
swerve for humans. Pedestrians and cyclists are the least protected participants in traffic. If you swerve and hit another car, the resulting crash will cause a lot of damage, but injuries to humans will likely be much less severe, if they even happen.
Animals, especially small ones are a different matter. Using the same argument, it is better to risk hitting the animal than risking sverving into other traffic.
Yes and no. The very action of braking will reduce available grip for the swerve. However, ABS and stability control mean you are at least quite unlikely to lose control if you try to do both at the same time. And of course, in this case, only a mild swerve would have been required, and adding braking would help scrub speed in the event that the obstacle moves in a manner that your swerve does not avoid.
There are so many variable here. If you are travelling at 30kmph and swerve into the path of a car going the opposite direction at 80kmph, that's a massive crash.
In my driving lessons I got told to swerve for humans. Pedestrians and cyclists are the least protected participants in traffic. If you swerve and hit another car, the resulting crash will cause a lot of damage, but injuries to humans will likely be much less severe, if they even happen.
Animals, especially small ones are a different matter. Using the same argument, it is better to risk hitting the animal than risking sverving into other traffic.