Which is worse: tailgating or brake checking?

Discussion, in general

Which is worse: tailgating or brake checking?

Tailgating
2
13%
Brake checking
9
56%
They are exactly equivalent
1
6%
Tailgating is worse, but brake checking AND fleeing the scene of an accident is worse than tailgating
4
25%
They are equivalent, but brake checking AND fleeing the scene of an accident is worse than tailgating
0
No votes
Other
0
No votes
 
Total votes : 16

Re: Which is worse: tailgating or brake checking?

Postby iMURDAu » Sun Oct 21, 2018 1:53 pm

I mean, I still think brake checkers get what's coming to them if they get hit since they are consciously making a choice to risk getting hit vs. a tailgater potentially just driving poorly.


The driving poorly is what increases the odds of an accident. The next brake check, as I previously mentioned, could be due to a large animal entering the roadway. It could be a child wandering onto the street. It isn't up to the person who is driving normally to shoulder the burden of keeping the aggressive person behind them safe. It's the other way around. I see people aggressively tailgating schoolbuses that are the 15th vehicle in a chain of traffic.

It's a diseased way of thinking that applying pressure will get your desired results. What I've noticed is that if you speed up for someone who is tailgating it doesn't matter how fast you go. You could be going 40 over the limit and they'll still be on your bumper because. Yet I'm supposed to keep them safe? And I've found myself in the "slow driver" role more often than not while I'm what? Speeding. I'm going 60 in a 50 and someone is raging behind me? Oooh yeah I'm letting off the pedal and seeing what 45 feels like. 10 over isn't enough try 5 under. We were moving and now we're not, what happened? I know they won't think about it but oh well.
  • 3

“This is going to become a bad meme,” Todd observed.
User avatar
iMURDAu
TCS Chomper
TCS Chomper
 
Posts: 6752
Joined: Fri Apr 19, 2013 10:08 am
Location: twitch.tv/beakstore
Show rep
Title: King of Fuh

Re: Which is worse: tailgating or brake checking?

Postby Anglerphobe » Sun Oct 21, 2018 6:55 pm

When I see people go off like this, I always wonder whether they fly off the handle so readily when they're slightly inconvenienced (or think they are) when out of their car. I know most people wouldn't be screaming and making insulting gestures if they were standing in front of you, and not barking from a separate cage out of reach of any accountability for their threats. Ironically, of course, it's actually much more dangerous to pick fights while driving a car. This is why the internet exists, so we can rage impotently at each other over nothing without any danger of either retaliation or smashing ourselves into trees.
  • 4

"Tusser, they tell me, when thou wert alive,
Thou, teaching thrift, thyselfe couldst never thrive.
So, like the whetstone, many men are wont
To sharpen others, when themselves are blunt."

Anyone who has any kind of opinion fucking disgusts me.
User avatar
Anglerphobe
TCS Junkie
TCS Junkie
 
Posts: 2160
Joined: Fri Mar 06, 2015 6:03 pm
Show rep
Title: round Earth shill

Re: Which is worse: tailgating or brake checking?

Postby Kate » Wed Oct 24, 2018 12:11 am

iMURDAu wrote:
I mean, I still think brake checkers get what's coming to them if they get hit since they are consciously making a choice to risk getting hit vs. a tailgater potentially just driving poorly.


The driving poorly is what increases the odds of an accident. The next brake check, as I previously mentioned, could be due to a large animal entering the roadway. It could be a child wandering onto the street. It isn't up to the person who is driving normally to shoulder the burden of keeping the aggressive person behind them safe. It's the other way around. I see people aggressively tailgating schoolbuses that are the 15th vehicle in a chain of traffic.

It's a diseased way of thinking that applying pressure will get your desired results. What I've noticed is that if you speed up for someone who is tailgating it doesn't matter how fast you go. You could be going 40 over the limit and they'll still be on your bumper because. Yet I'm supposed to keep them safe? And I've found myself in the "slow driver" role more often than not while I'm what? Speeding. I'm going 60 in a 50 and someone is raging behind me? Oooh yeah I'm letting off the pedal and seeing what 45 feels like. 10 over isn't enough try 5 under. We were moving and now we're not, what happened? I know they won't think about it but oh well.
It's a different situation to brake suddenly because it is necessary; doing so just to get at a tailgater is in fact aggressive driving, is intentionally risking getting hit, and is that driver's responsibility (and in some places it is illegal, though hard to prove). There is no room for purposely escalating a dangerous situation in normal driving. It becomes abnormal and is the same diseased, controlling thinking. It is literally behaving in an unsafe way in order to try and control the driver behind you; that is absolutely a brake-checker's responsibility. I don't think tailgaters should tailgate, but that doesn't make brake-checking morally superior. They're both aggressive driving, but one is intentional by definition and it isn't tailgating.
  • 3

JT's Art Thread - JamesT's awesome stuff.
User avatar
Kate
Gul DuKate
Gul DuKate
 
Posts: 2961
Joined: Sun Apr 14, 2013 10:08 am
Location: Assembling Future Kate
Show rep
Title: Sheepwoman

Re: Which is worse: tailgating or brake checking?

Postby iMURDAu » Wed Oct 24, 2018 1:04 am

I disagree that tailgating is not done intentionally.

As I've said and the law states the driver behind has to give a safe distance. Failing to do that is the unsafe act. How can the person ahead of you make you move forward towards them? If they hit the brakes and you don't hit them then you're not following too closely.

I have only had to do the slow down to piss someone off on one stretch of road. And it's only been to one person so far. He's a dangerous driver that passes everyone in maniacal ways so I toyed with him a couple times. I didn't see him for months, figured he finally went to prison or drove off the road and died but I saw him on the way home again recently driving like he finally got neutered. And I always tried to avoid him but when he passes people by inches just to almost hit your bumper it's hard to to not hang out slightly over the shoulder line and forget that acceleration is a thing.
  • 2

“This is going to become a bad meme,” Todd observed.
User avatar
iMURDAu
TCS Chomper
TCS Chomper
 
Posts: 6752
Joined: Fri Apr 19, 2013 10:08 am
Location: twitch.tv/beakstore
Show rep
Title: King of Fuh

Re: Which is worse: tailgating or brake checking?

Postby cmsellers » Wed Oct 24, 2018 1:23 am

iMURDAu wrote:I disagree that tailgating is not done intentionally.

Sometimes it is, but Kate's point is that brake-checking is by definition intentional. Tailgating absolutely can be accidental, the result of incompetent or distracted drivers.
  • 2

User avatar
cmsellers
Back-End Admin
Back-End Admin
 
Posts: 9316
Joined: Sun Apr 14, 2013 7:20 pm
Location: Not *that* Bay Area
Show rep
Title: Broken Record Player

Re: Which is worse: tailgating or brake checking?

Postby Kate » Wed Oct 24, 2018 2:02 am

iMURDAu wrote:I disagree that tailgating is not done intentionally.

As I've said and the law states the driver behind has to give a safe distance. Failing to do that is the unsafe act. How can the person ahead of you make you move forward towards them? If they hit the brakes and you don't hit them then you're not following too closely.

I have only had to do the slow down to piss someone off on one stretch of road. And it's only been to one person so far. He's a dangerous driver that passes everyone in maniacal ways so I toyed with him a couple times. I didn't see him for months, figured he finally went to prison or drove off the road and died but I saw him on the way home again recently driving like he finally got neutered. And I always tried to avoid him but when he passes people by inches just to almost hit your bumper it's hard to to not hang out slightly over the shoulder line and forget that acceleration is a thing.
I have definitely gotten lost in thought and snapped out of it to realize I am not a safe distance from the car in front of me on days when I was probably too tired to be driving, and have taught people who were new drivers and not good judges of a safe distance. Both are cases of unintentional tailgating. So...yes it happens. Don't get me wrong, plenty of tailgating is intentional and awful, but it's not necessarily so. Brake-checking is specifically hitting the brakes when you don't need to and always an intentional act by its nature. And in the state where you hang your hat it's one of the few things that will cause you to be found at fault in a rear-end collision. Because the law also is pretty clear that braking suddenly without cause is reckless driving. I am not at all saying that tailgating is okay or safe (it isn't) so I am not sure why you are trying to argue they are at fault. Of course they are, of course they are supposed to give a safe distance. But that doesn't mitigate how wrong brake-checking is.

The fact is that brake-checking is an intentional act and makes things more dangerous, not just for the tail-gater and brake-checker but for everyone in the vicinity. If a car slams into me because the driver was tailgating and the guy in front decided to slam on the brakes to fuck with him, they are both at fault. At least one of them made an active choice to make a dangerous situation even more dangerous.
  • 3

JT's Art Thread - JamesT's awesome stuff.
User avatar
Kate
Gul DuKate
Gul DuKate
 
Posts: 2961
Joined: Sun Apr 14, 2013 10:08 am
Location: Assembling Future Kate
Show rep
Title: Sheepwoman

Re: Which is worse: tailgating or brake checking?

Postby CarrieVS » Wed Oct 24, 2018 9:02 am

Two wrongs don't make a right and two dangerouses definitely don't make a safe.
  • 4

A Combustible Lemon wrote:Death is an archaic concept for simpleminded commonfolk, not Victorian scientist whales.
User avatar
CarrieVS
TCS Redshirt
TCS Redshirt
 
Posts: 7103
Joined: Sat Apr 20, 2013 7:43 pm
Location: By my wild self in the wet wild woods waving my wild tail
Show rep
Title: Drama Llama

Previous

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 14 guests

cron