I guess you can bring this argument back when boingboing posts a video of something like that happening. It’s not applicable here though.
the question is, who is wrong? I don’t see any grounds whatsoever for saying the lead vehicle did anything wrong.
Hard to tell from the video if the driver in front was doing an actual brake check or just flashing the brake lights without changing speed as a “please back off” signal. Tailgater was so aggressively close in that he might have panicked either way.
Regardless, I don’t touch the brake pedal when somebody is being that aggressive. Safest is to get out of the way, but that’s not always possible. It’s not my job to punish terrible drivers, but I’m not pushing 100mph and risking getting a ticket that rightfully belongs to the asshole on my bumper if that’s the only way out of his way.
In those cases, the best combination of safe and effective I’ve found is just taking my foot off the gas. I’m happy to resume speed as soon as I’ve got breathing room. It might be the only option I’ve seen that’s ever made somebody back off. Even some road-raging jerks are still rational enough to figure out how to maximize the speed they’ll be able to go.
It’s not possible to get out of the way safely more often than people seem to intuitively imagine too, by the way: If were safe for me to get over, he would have passed me on the right. Where possible, most super aggressive would-be tailgaters will whip around you on the right before you have time to get over, even if you’re signaling. And if the right lane were going faster in the first place, he’d already be riding up somebody else’s butt over there instead. This stuff happens when you’re passing, but not quickly enough for the jerk’s taste.
I blame the system.
The brake checker wasn’t maintaining speed with the vehicle in front of it, and had an opportunity to move to the right lane.
Are you pro-brake-checking psychopaths looking forward to brake checking a self-driving car, just to test out its programming? If that sounds like a bad idea, then maybe doing it to a human is even worse. How about actually following some lane discipline?
Also, the brake checkers seem to be in favor of the “law”, as if that can save lives. How about actually giving a shit about the protocols of the road and applying defensive driving principles, instead of directly antagonizing the situation?
Depending on the state, the lead vehicle could have been in the wrong for not getting over earlier. The tailgater was following closely and clearly wanting to pass when the two vehicles passed the vehicle with the dashcam. The lead had an opportunity to get in the right lane then. Waiting until it didn’t have a chance because of the merging on ramp wouldn’t excuse the failure of a slower vehicle to stay right (again, in the scenario that they’re in a state where slower vehicles are require to let other vehicles pass by changing lanes, especially if passing a vehicle in the right lane is prohibited).
Let me quote the comment you’re replying to since you don’t appear to have read it:
Where did I say that it was safe to tailgate? I specifically said it was wrong and dangerous. You’re ignoring the nuance between possibility and result. There’s a possibility that tailgating can contribute to an accident, but it does not always. That doesn’t mean that it’s safe. Do you understand the difference? It’s like the difference between cheating and getting caught. It’s still wrong, but there aren’t the same consequences if you don’t get caught. I’m going to repeat and bold that so you understand my position. “It’s still wrong.”
“Normal” isn’t a legal or insurance standard, so “normal” is irrelevant. It’s legal to show brake lights and in some jurisdictions it may not be illegal to brake check, but some insurance companies and law enforcement agents in some jurisdictions will conclude partial fault for the brake checker. But we’re also in disagreement as to whether or not the vehicle just “showed brake lights” or actually braked suddenly.
Ultimately, without consideration for the actions of the tailgater, who the lead driver can’t control, the lead driver could have prevented the accident by not applying their brakes. If they knew that an accident could occur should they do so without having a legitimate reason to do so, they are partially at fault because they were callous in the face of a decision. Again, just because someone tells you to punch them doesn’t mean you won’t get charged for assault. Brake checking when you don’t need to can cause an accident, regardless of whether you’ll be held liable for it by an LEA or the insurance companies.
tl;dr You don’t have to be a dick just because someone else is being a dick.
In that situation, reasonably the squirrel is toast, man.
I’d say 75/25. The vehicle that was in front was well within its rights until the driver pulled an intentional dangerous maneuver because they were upset at the person behind them. Not cool, but not enough to give even half the fault. The tailgater was doing some serious reckless driving and aggressively getting far too close.
I think both of their behaviors here were wrong and both drivers need to get some serious safe driving classes. I consider things like brake checking a form of road vigilantism, something that will put the person doing it and others in danger. We should all be trying to minimize harm to everyone, even in the face of rampant douchebaggery.
Permanent nope for me. I drive the speed limit. If I have to be in the passing lane for some reason, I’m not speeding because someone behind me doesn’t understand speed limits (also not brake checking but I might take the cruise control off and coast down a bit 
).
I agree the brakechecker shares some responsibility but brakechecker wasn’t slower traffic. Brakechecker was already driving faster than the rest of traffic (and pretty much exactly the speed limit, thanks @Logolepsy ). Brakechecker had no obligation to break the law because Asshole McGoinSomewhere wanted to go faster.
I find “four seconds from their rear bumper to yours” easier in a practical sense (totally agree, just mentioning car length is difficult to visualize).
If we’re going that route, I blame the lack of viable public transit throughout most of the U.S. 
Personally, I agree with you. But the law might not.
e.g. in WA state, if you are in the HOV lanes you can be ticketed for not pulling over (into the ‘fast’ lane!) if you are holding traffic up, and/or ticketed for breaking the speed limit.
Personally, I like driving at the speed limit in the HOV lanes. It’s nice. And funny to see how long people will sit right behind you when they could easily overtake you if they could just be arsed to change lanes.
The brake checker added to an already heightened situation by tapping their brakes. Sometimes, yes, it is safer and prudent to just put up with a douchebag tailgater and just get out of their way when you can.
“Communicating” with a tailgater by tapping your breaks is a terrible idea. It’ll either piss them off or scare them; they aren’t going to think “oh, hey, this guy thinks I’m too close, I should back off”. Pissing them off will make them drive more erratic and more aggressively, causing either yourself or someone else to get hurt. Scaring them causes shit like this to happen. At least two other cars were put in danger because of these two assholes’ actions; if the tailgater swerved the other way there would have been a lot more damage.
I see this as an issue of minimizing damage through one’s actions around others who may not be regarding themselves or others. Tailgating is fucking dangerous, but it’s not up to other drivers to play pretend police or to communicate through brake checking. You’re not going to solve the problem by doing it, you’ll just escalate the situation causing a more dangerous situation.
I’ve really gotta QFT the both of you here. When anyone is in the situation that they are being tailgated or have some jackass being overly aggressive around them on the road they should be focus on driving defensively and deescalating the situation; not trying to communicate or tell the other person what they are doing is wrong or unsafe. Any communication will be met with at best no consideration and at worst an escalated situation. While it wasn’t the checker’s fault, they had a major role in putting several people’s lives at risk here.
OH! That way. Yeah I do that all the time. If I’m not in the leftmost lane and getting tailgated, then I guess we’ll all get there later instead of sooner, cuz I’m taking my foot off the gas until we’re going at a speed appropriate for less than one car length to be a safe following distance. If you want to go faster then you’ll have to do that somewhere that isn’t directly behind me.
I don’t get in the passing lane without a good reason and I get back over as soon as I can do it safely.
Aside from those weird areas where you can get ticketed for driving the speed limit (instead of vastly above like literally 90% of everyone else on the road) during rush hour … I don’t think the law has much to say about me.
I’m not one of those folks staying in the passing lane at the speed limit just to show everyone else “a thing or two.”
[spoiler]Story time. I realized speeding was pointless a fair bit after I stopped speeding (I stopped speeding because of gas prices after Hurricane Katrina). This kid in a modded Honda went zipping along, rapidly changing lanes almost all my highway stretch back then. I noticed he would pass me at roughly this one place every day.
One day I realized by the time I got to my exit, he was only about 2-3 cars ahead of me. Every day. Every day, driving as aggressively as he could. On a ten mile stretch of medium heavy traffic, he couldn’t beat me and I didn’t even know a race was happening. 
[/spoiler]
I don’t know about US driving laws, but in Germany the brake-checker would be at fault. You actually get this thought in driving school. It’s called defensive driving and essentially means “Some people on the road might be assholes or make mistakes, but you should stay in control, drive save, and get out of the way. If you try to be an asshole back, you only make matters worse.”
Case in point, this video.
EDIT: But if you are driving to slow and block traffic, you’ll also get fined, but I don’t think this is the case here. If it would be the case, I still think brake-checker would be in the wrong legally but I’m not sure.
Sometimes you have to fucking wait. Because matter occupies volume. Sucks to be the asshole tailgater who thought they could get their way by threatening to smash into someone with a few thousand pounds of metal. They got what they deserved.
So, what is actually safest to do when you’re the slow car in front, being tailgated so closely? This happens to me quite a bit–I’m on, say, 580 out east of Livermore, CA, there is a lot of merging traffic, I’m going 15 MPH over the speed limit in the left lane, following the car in front as close as I safely can, but with the traffic volume it can be quite a while before it’s safe to merge back. And some dude in a truck is right on my bumper, far too close to stop if I need to slow quickly.
What should I do? I sometimes put my right turn signal on even if there isn’t a place for me to go, to show that I’m goddamned trying to get out of his way, and hopefully someone will take pity and give me space to merge. But I have tapped the brakes as lightly as possible (i.e., without slowing down at all) to let the tailgater know they’re too close. I never thought it was an aggressive driving maneuver, but after reading comments on a few dashcam youtube videos, I see I might have been sending the wrong message.
So, someone is tailgating you as close as the guy in this video, and you can’t merge out of his way for another 15 seconds. If it’s not safe to speed up (i.e., a car in front of you), what’s the right thing to do?
Apparently to some in this thread: Nothing. Just suck up the extra danger. Maybe you’ll be killed if you have to break suddenly. Maybe your car will be crushed between the person in front of you and the jackass behind you. That’s what you get of existing on the tailgater’s road.
Everything you’re doing sounds reasonable to me. If you’re on 580, I’d also watch out for the ladder in the road. (Why is there always a ladder in the road?)
You should not be close enough that you can’t stop. You should not brake check. Both are assholes.
In this case brake checker was using the left lane correctly, to avoid merging traffic. Were that not the case, he would be by far the greater of the two assholes for not having already changed lanes before tailgater got that close.
But Brakechecker was slower traffic. Brakechecker never caught up to the silver minivan, who smartly and correctly got right over after passing the big rig with the camera. Tailgater was on pace to pass the silver minivan, and would have if Brakechecker was a better driver and hadn’t decided to be the amateur highway patrol.
Also, if you’re going “pretty much exactly the speed limit” in the passing lane, how are you going to pass?
