The law says the guy tailgating is at fault. He didn’t even hit the guy he was tailgating, he lost control after hard braking. You are responsible for being able to stop in time if the person in front of you slams on their brakes for any reason. Don’t tailgate if you can’t handle the response. I hate left lane campers, but you take your chances when you tailgate.
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Confident, competent drivers must wait for bad drivers every day on every drive.
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Absolutely. Tailgaiters are neither. They also put everyone else in danger. And I wish we had more options to punish them for putting us in danger. Because they’re bullies.
They could wait, but they think threatening people with death and dismemberment is a better option.
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I say Both
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Gradually decelerating when tailgated is a sensible response (and is what the road authorities here recommend), but I’m curious as to why y’all think “gradual deceleration without brake lights” is safer than “gradual deceleration with brake lights”.
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Because tailgaters are unbelievably stupid, and they tend not to overreact when you boil the frog slowly. You briefly flash the brakelights and they’re all “Oh FUCK!” *SCREE SMASH*. If you just get slower they keep the same distance the whole time until they realize you’re both going 10MPH with a foot of space between bumpers, and then they go around.
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They both are. The brake checker is a dick for brake checking. The tailgater is a douche for tailgating; especially because the guy he was tailgating couldn’t go into the inside lane due to merging traffic.
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I watched it again… The tailgater’s license plate looks like it might be an Illinois plate (and is personalized as Pr1nce5).
Everybody in WI knows that IL drivers are the worst, hence it is definitely the tailgater’s fault. QED
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If the driver brake checked on purpose, then both are at fault. Someone driving dangerously doesn’t give you permission to do so as well.
If the driver legitimately slowed down for what they perceived as safety reasons, then just the tailgater.
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Thought it was the 4 second rule… and a minimum safety… I prefer a 10 second gap… you can only die once.
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So then you’d blame a deer for the tailgater’s death if a deer had caused the brake-checker to slow suddenly while the tailgater was tailgating?
It’s just never the tailgaters fault for you, is it?
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Tailgater is at fault. If you can’t stop safely in the distance in front of you, it’s your fault.
Brake lights are a warning that you’re braking! If the driver behind can’t respond to a warning, it is plain and simply their own recklessness that’s put them in that situation. It makes no difference if the driver braking was doing so to avoid an accident or to warn the driver behind them.
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I would argue it does, for the same reason an accidental death is different than a premeditated murder. The intent to cause harm was clearly there.
That said, both people are being jerks in this scenario – there is no “winner”. Escalation is never the answer.
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As has been stated upthread: in many (most?) places, flashing brake lights is not “escalation” and does not connote any intent to cause harm. It’s just a message of “I would prefer you to not follow my vehicle so closely”, in much the same way as a turn indicator communicates an intent to change lanes.
In both cases, the warning lights can indicate either “I am in the process of braking/turning right now” or “I intend to brake/turn in the future, please leave room for me to safely do so”.
If your driving ability is so grotesquely inadequate that you can’t deal with a routine signal light without panic, then you are simply not fit to be allowed on the road.
Actual hard braking in an attempt to force a collision would be an entirely different thing, but that is not what occurred in this situation.
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I was going to write that this was a repost from March but then the comment system noticed that I was posting a link that was already posted by @shotbyjake and ask me if I was sure I wanted to post it again.
I’m super impressed with the boingboing commenting system and a bit perplexed why the boingboing CMS doesn’t have the same feature.
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Boing Boing proper is a blog running on WordPress. The BBS is running on Discourse. I’m not sure how the code that communicates between the two is set up.
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How else do you tell someone following dangerously closely to back off because they’re putting me and my car in grave danger?
The windshield fluid thing is easily misinterpretable.
I guess if I want to drive I’m supposed to just put up with any crazy risks another driver imposes on me silently and enjoy it, huh? It’s not like the horn, which is supposed to signal danger to other drivers, works in this situation.
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I am pretty sure this video has been on BB before:
Can’t we just refer to that previous discussion? Hell, @pesco even said “brake-checking is a terrible idea”.
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There’s always the old-school biker trick of tossing a few bolts or AA batteries into their windscreen.
Not really a lower-risk option, though. 
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So like what I thought you said: when someone else puts you in unreasonable irrational danger on the road, do nothing. Because you’re powerless to save yourself, and can’t even communicate your dis-ease at the predicament. Because criminal bad actors are just more powerful than you.
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