Serves him right, if you ask me.
3 Likes
Wait, Texas has laws?
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How?
The video leaves plenty of room for āreasonable doubt.ā Without a Mens Rae, good luck getting anything resembling a criminal conviction.
There are many roads hazards for which one breaks rather than swerves, so the lack of a swerve isnāt dispositive.
I see no evidence in that video suggesting liability-generating malfeasance or negligence.
So long as the driver maintains , āI was trying to drive safely. I thought I saw something in the road,ā that driver may get sued, but s/he will almost certainly prevail.
(BTW ā I have no legal training whatsoever ā but I do love bandying about legal terms so I can sound important on the internet 8)
6 Likes
Because it works so well.
By Texas standards, that brake check wasnāt an āextremely aggressive action.ā Not even close.
Are you by any chance Canadian?
Learning to brake check was taught to me as āgood defense drivingā. A good brake check is an art.
And yes, I am a native Texan.
4 Likes
nah. most people who tailgate considers themselves responsible drivers. these sorts of things ā by definition, since theyāre such good drivers-- would never happen to them. itās all those other drivers who are stupid. i mean who canāt handle a simple brake tap without spinning out of control?
personally, i think itās kind of like gun ownership. accidents never happen to responsible gun owners, and if there was an accident they must never have been responsible in the first place.
11 Likes
Two things Iāve never understood driving here in the colonies (not that itās unique, just where Iāve done most of my driving):
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Why people intentionally slow each-other up, be it w/ lane merging in construction or the āTexas Roadblockā (what itās called out west) where the car in the passing lane keeps pace with the car in the driving lane to keep everyone behind them from passing. When just plain good manners could make everyone move along at a faster rateā¦
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Why people in cars think theyāll get a trophy, commendation, celebrated or a good 'ol pat on the back if they take out a motorcycle that is passing them. The number of doors Iāve had opened on me, people swerving to hit me as I pass them - outright homicidal behavior as soon as someone gets into their car - people who are likely mostly normal otherwiseā¦
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You know what else is an art? Moving to the right lane and letting the tailgating asshole go by. Good defensive driving is doing what you can to avoid an accident, not going out of your way to possibly create one.
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Seriously, what is it with Seattle? When I was working the night shift, Iād drive home northbound on I5 from Federal Way at 75mph, in the second from the left general lane at 1AM. People would tailgate me so badly I couldnāt see their headlights! With a whole empty lane to the left they could pass me in.
So eventually I just decided I donāt want to deal with the stress of people drafting me. Iāll take my foot off the gas and just coast down to 60mph and lock the cruise control there. If they want to go faster than me, they safely pass me using the empty lane to the left.
If they donāt do that, I turn off cruise control and just let it coast. Iāve gotten down to 10mph before the tailgaterās realized they should pass me.
Not as dangerous as a brake check, and you can only really do it when thereās no traffic on the road anyway. But Iām not going to move to try and get out of a tailgaterās way. They can go fuck themselves if they think they can bully me into going even faster than 75 in a 60. They can go around me. Nobodyās stopping them. So they must just want to get really close to by rear end. In that case Iāll give them a hand and let off the gas until theyāve had enough of my cruising to 0.
15 Likes
There must have been some earlier dust-up there, otherwise why would the rider get in that close when he passed on the left (Iām assuming this isnāt Australia)? He really slowed up a lot to stake his claim to the spot in front.
I usually will give a tiny tap on the brakes and also hit the hazard lights. The tailgater then thinks itās not about them personally and they usually back right off. Not always, but itās been pretty effective for me.
1 Like
How do you tell the difference between a driver in front of you gratuitously hitting the brakes and someone braking for a legit reason thatās not obvious to you?
If youāre driving responsibly and following at a safe distance, you can live to ask them about it later. Otherwise, you get zero sympathy from me. I oppose the death penalty, except for tail-gaters.
4 Likes
The person responsible for the crash in that video was the tailgater not leaving safe enough distance to brake in time. Itās not necessarily obvious from the perspective of a tail-gating car, or from what we see in this video, whether the car in front had a legit reason to hit the brakes.
6 Likes
I agree with that except you shouldnāt get back into the right lane when traffic is merging onto it from the on ramp.
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Iād love to be educated on ANY instance where an insurance company finds the person hit from behind as āat faultā.
I know of exactly one case. A former colleague of mine was being tailgated, hit his brakes, and got hit from behind. Cops were called, and the tailgater told the cop his side of the story. The cop asked my colleague if he did indeed ābrake checkā the other driver, and he answered honestly. In return for his honesty he got the ticket was was deemed at-fault in the collision.
1 Like
See now, the right way to brake-check requires a manual transmission so you can do a hard downshift without touching the brake pedalā¦
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[quote=āRatel, post:21, topic:74926, full:trueā]
Itās a common insurance fraud game. My GF got hit by it. You find a stretch of road far away from any towns, then try to box the victim in with semis on one or two sides. The fact of the matter is that even at a āsafeā distance, if someone slams to a complete stop, no-one will be able to stop before having a minor fender bender. [/quote]
Nope, you can stop with distance to spare if youāre driving properly. That insurance scam is a (dangerous) form of stupidity tax. If the car ahead of you canāt unexpectedly make a serious full emergency stop without you causing an accident, then you are being a menace and need to learn to drive properly. The fact that so many people on the road drive poorly is not justification that itās ok to drive poorly.
6 Likes
Or perhaps they were just trying to bring it to the driverās attention that they were too close? They were, after all, taking an unnecessary risk with all the lives of the people in every direction around them, itās pretty noble to let them know in case they werenāt aware.
3 Likes
This tailgater was particularly bad. It looks like barely a car length when the lead car tapped the brakes, and they were probably traveling at a fairly good clip. Itās also unclear why the tailgater lost control of their car.
Iāve had discussions with people on car sites about tailgating, and the general consensus among tailgaters is that they will never change. I point out that the two-second rule is easy to follow, and is a good rule of thumb in good weather, but the response is often along the lines of ābut a car will get in in front of me,ā as if that was a tragedy that must be avoided at all costs. The two-second rule also goes a long way at mitigating the problem of ātraffic wavesā
Safer than brake checking is slowing down, and patiently waiting for the tailgater to have a stroke or heart attack. I often turn off my overdrive, which creates some engine braking and slows me down a little. Not too quickly, and not too much, just enough to generate apoplexy.
2 Likes
You must be a tailgater then? Brake checking is the nicest way possible to let a-holes like this tailgater get the message they need a few more car lengths.
1 Like
Does that guy even have brake lights?
