Obviously the tailgater should be treated no differently to someone who runs up to strangers on the sidewalk swinging an axe in one hand; their behavior is criminally insane. But by the same analogy, you’re not justified pushing that axe-wielding person in front of a bus.
I’m not sure what it is about driving that makes it OK to casually endanger others’s lives or to dispense extrajudicial capital punishment.
(Though of course, the person in front might have had a legitimate excuse, and the tailgater categorically didn’t)
You do just as the minivan at the start of the video did. Once you pass the slow car (the filmer) you merge back to the right unless you are at the flow of traffic speed for the left lane.
Is it the law? No
Is it courteous driving? IMO, yes.
And the brake checker was not moving at a speed I would say was fast enough to keep them in the left lane based on the other traffic that passed and the vehicle entering the freeway via the on ramp.
Also - he just gave a light activiation. A true brake check would actually brake and slow their speed necessitating a dodge. In this case the tailgater over reacted to just a mile light check.
That sounds like it applies just as well to the tailgater.
The situation was already dangerous. The brake-checker may have increased the risk, but the tailgater created the situation to start with and had the most ability to make it less dangerous.
One fault in your “short skirt” analogy is that brake-checking can lead to road rage for the brake-checker as well as the one being brake-checked. That is to say, when you brake-check someone, you are taking a potential step toward escalating your own anger on the road.
In itself, brake-checking is often an expression of emotion. You don’t like someone following you closely and you feel that you are in the right by going the speed limit, regardless of being in the passing lane, and your only current way to express that anger to someone behind you is by hitting the brakes.
[quote=“rkt88edmo, post:126, topic:84050”]
In the video the car in front doesn’t appear to slow appreciably, so there was no unsafe behavior committed by that driver.
[/quote]The brake checking car slows enough that the large truck filming it slowed to the same speed and then stopped shortly after the brake checking car accelerates away from the accident.
It’s 100% a brake check and not flashing the lights, those brakes were held for a few seconds.
That’s why I used “may have”. Since an incident did happen, it’s clear that the risk was increased at least somewhat. I’d still say the danger was almost entirely caused and under the control of the tailgater, though.
Interestingly this was filmed on Hwy 400,just north of Toronto, Ontario. Ontario traffic laws specifically and deliberately exclude pass-on-the-left rules, and keep-to-the-right rules – the theory being that such laws only make it easier to speed. So in this jurisdiction there is no requirement or obligation to keep a passing lane open. Tailgater at fault, pure and simple. He’s putting the lead car in danger, and the lead car has every right to do what he can to get the tailgater to back off, imho.
Somebody criticized the brake checker for not driving defensively. I have to disagree. Brake checking is a defensive driving move.
In my state, it’s normal to signal people that they are following too close by flashing your brake lights without braking. Or at least that’s what I was taught in High School Driver’s Ed.
Might I ask what state you’re in, so I don’t get busted for signalling people there?
When that happened to me, in Rockville Maryland, the guy was so close I literally could not see his brake lights. I couldn’t see his bumper, just his trunk lid. As soon as he got in front of me, he locked up his brakes. I was already braking, but the car I was driving was not able to stop as fast, so I hit him, which caused an empty coke bottle to fly out of the back of the car and hit me in the back of the head, knocking me unconscious (I was driving because the girl who owned the car was too drunk).
Normally if you rear-end somebody you are automatically at fault. But in my case, the other driver was not an American citizen, his car wasn’t insured, and multiple independent eyewitnesses volunteered to testify on my behalf, so I was cleared.
Seems you are saying both that brake checking will cause me to have road rage and that brake checking is road rage. That’s a pretty strange place to put the line in terms of, I’m driving responsibly, some jerk drives up within inches of my bumper, I flash my brake lights to indicate that he should not follow so close, and then apparently I may be in ‘road rage’ state. Why would you say it is the act of flashing brakes that has created the risk of road rage, rather than, say, some tailgating asshole? Especially considering you apparently classify the brake tap itself as already being a manifestation of road rage. Isn’t it the tailgating that has caused the road rage in that case?
So back to your original statement, how is a brake check leading to road rage?
You are ascribing motives to the brake-checker you have no way of knowing actually exist. The reasons described in this case for not getting out of the way include traffic merging in from the right. Is it necessarily road rage to attempt to communicate to someone that they are tail-gating? It is possible for a brake-checker to have emotional motives, but not necessary. Aggressively tailgating is emotional, unintentional tailgating is incompetent driving.
Road rage can be one-sided but in my experience I would argue that, in the immortal words of Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston, “it takes two, baby.” It’s a process of escalation, from annoyance to the point where it’s a matter of life and death.
I would also argue that hitting your brakes, or the brake lights themselves, do not effectively form a message that says, “Please don’t follow so closely.” Likewise, and somewhat needless to say, tailgating does not effectively send a message that says, “Pardon me, slower cars should keep to the right, as per state law.”
I will not dispute that–all other things being equal–the person who roars up behind you and tailgates is the one who has drawn first blood, and who is already climbing up the rage ladder. But it should be clear that brake-checking is not the appropriate answer. Anyone who has been a teenager with a license knows that brake-checking is the motoring equivalent of “fuck you, I’ll do what I want.” It’s the same as people who decide to spray their washer fluid at the moment when they are being followed too closely.
The only reasonable and safe thing to do when you are being aggressively tailgated is to get the hell out of the way. That person behind you is unknown save for the fact they are using a vehicle in a dangerous way. You need to eliminate interaction with them, not raise the stakes.
My friend/carer has been in situations where she has been tailgated and has nowhere to go (one lane road at the speed limit). Her usual response is not break checking, but to slow down to 30kph gradually over about 30 seconds.
I was taught in driver’s ed to brake check, as a way of telling the tailgater to back off.
The law states (in my state anyways) that the car that is being hit cannot be at fault.
So, fault: Tailgater. If you can’t react to some brake lights properly, that is your own failing as a driver. 2 second follow rule, according to that same driver’s ed teacher.
ETA: It occurs to me that you could segment this question into: Legally wrong, and Morally wrong.
Morally, I think it’s possible based on context that the brake checker is in the wrong just as much as the tailgater (subjective, though). Legally, it’s clearly defined, at least in my state.
