At least on the bikes I had access to growing up, rim brakes were hard to adjust so you could easily lock up the wheels, but not drag when not applied... Especially if you had safety levers. V brakes hadn't been invented yet: we just had side pull or center pull.

Coaster brakes didn't tend to noticably drag and were easy to lock up.

When I got access to v-brakes, yeah you can lock those up no problem... Lots of fun. A little tricky to learn modulation with when you're coming from older style rim brakes though.