Now, I will admit that when someone tailgates me I will slow down, as far as ten miles below the speed limit on country roads, if I believe it is possible for them to pass me. But this is because I want them off my fucking tail, and my hope is that I will both make it easier to pass me and give them a greater motivation to do it. I do not use the brakes when I do this and do not even take my foot entirely off the gas unless I was already going 45 or below. It is a very gradual slowing to try to avoid an accident.
The fact that people deliberately brake hard to teach tailgaters a lesson is horrifying to me, and yet I am sadly unsurprised that people do it. When I was googling, I came across a YouTube video where we see two sets of cars on the highway which involve a vehicle tailgating dangerously close. In the second set, the front car brake checks, causing the tailgater to drive off the road, which on a highway could be a fatal accident. The driver then keeps driving.
In other words, the driver deliberately caused a potentially fatal accident and then fled the scene. As unlikely as this is in the US, I really hope the tailgater had dash cam footage, and the brake checker got in trouble for it, but I know that it is more likely that the driver got off Scott free.
The YouTube comments being the YouTube comments, most of them are saying that the tailgater got exactly what they deserved. But even the most critical comments are saying that brake checking and tailgating are equally bad. Suddenly, it occurs to me that if YouTube commenters represent the average person, I might actually be an above-average driver despite having believing all my life that I am a below-average one. And it also occurs to me to wonder how common the view that tailgating and brake checking are two sizes of the same coin is.
As I see it, tailgating is—depending on the driver—either negligent or reckless and passive aggressive. Some people tailgate because they are clueless, and most I suspect do it because they are hoping that driving dangerously close to the person in front of them will lead them to increase their speed. However while the behavior that they are doing increases an accident, the goal is not to cause harm to the other driver.
By contrast, brake-checking is malicious. At best, the brake-checker is trying to scare another driver. They might claim that are trying to teach the tailgater a lesson in safety, but I doubt the kind of person who tailgates is likely to learn that lesson. And on the other side of things, in my experience I drive much worse when I am frightened, and I would imagine most people are the same. At worst, a brake-checker is deliberately trying to cause an accident.
But what do y'all think? Are tailgating and brake checking exactly equivalent? If not, which is worse and why?