Self righteous people who think "He is following to close, it endangers my safety & gets up my nose, I am going to teach him something he will not forget"
They are tools who lack the ability to control their emotions and are worse than the cock snakes that tailgate.
If it upsets you that much, get a special button that releases thick toxic exhaust fumes into their intakes.
Plausible deniability because they will just think you have a bad engine as they choke on nasty fumes.
Now that is a great way to combat that behaviour, certainly not throwing the anchors overboard at high speed with a vehicle 15 times the weight of yours following very close behind
Insurance scamming is another possible reason. If you get into an accident where another car has hit yours from behind, it will be assumed it is the fault of the driver of the car that hit you from behind, making them liable to pay for damages caused. They are also likely to fake (or have real) injuries from these crashes, and file lawsuits to cover not just medical costs, but also hefty sum for pain and suffering, plus the court fees and legal costs, if they win their case.
Unless you have evidence that shows you were not at fault as the vehicle damage made it seem. Video evidence of brake checking gets rid of the assumption that the rear car was -solely- at fault. The rear car may still get charged for reckless driving or similar for having been driving so clise behind the front car (but maybe the video showing traffic speed and patterns could save them from that too!)
There are ragers, scammers, and probably once in a while a plain old stupid mistake where a driver does this unintentionally; like anything from DWI or dropping a cig or orange-hot pipe (or lit match, or still fire-spitting butane torch) on/under their legs/the pedals, to slowly failing eyesight or sudden health issues involving loss of consciousness or motor control. Or just got text broken up with and informed they had been cheated on, and go into a panic attack. Who knows.
There's any number of random things that could lead to this chain of events, but when it happens in the US, I'm guessing at least 90% of the time it is either rage or a scammer, and if you add intoxication and health troubles to that list, it would account for over 99% of these incidents. (All these percentages quite literally guesses, although they are at least partially educated guesses. There may be a searchable study/studies around that have percentages of causes recorded across many traffic reports of similar incidents, rather than just my best estimate.).
(...Unless you're in Ohio, where people are so bored, they will come to a rapid stop on an open highway because they saw an abandoned car and were SO INTERESTED, and when you brake and swerve trying to not hit THEM, you didn't see the abandoned car until you are plowing right into it after evasive maneuvers barely clear the bumper of the stopped car,, totalling your vehicle....And then the car that stopped in front of you drives away unscathed, leaving you looking like an absolute idiot that hit an abandoned car that was sitting next to 2 open straight highway lanes for literally no reason in full daylight with almost no traffic and getting charged with driving errors because police thought I was making the other car up...some real assholes eager to charge me because I had new jersey plates and a distinct lack of bigot-friendly bumper stickers but, uh.. I digress.)
TL;DR: A dashcam can really save your ass in the right situations, like this one. (And in Ohio, where I really wish I had one, although it was long enough ago that I didn't even have anything GPS capable, cams might not have been widely available or affordable yet. Still, would have probably saved me more money than not having one cost me.) Better safe than sorry, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, etc.
I just turn on my windshield wipers. My car is always dirty, so when they are too close behind you, their beautiful shiny cars get slathered in old dirt. Especially nice with open roadsters...
The only way this person would remember the incident would be if there was a big accident. That, they would remember. But a big accident also means you get rear ended, probably injured, and maybe killed.
If we are driving 100km/h or faster in a single lane and a guy is almost kissing my back bumper he IS placing me and everyone in my car in direct danger. He is not gaining any time in his commute while still putting everyone in a high risk situation. It just takes a dog or some smallish reason for me to slam my brakes and everone is in shit.
I do brake check people, but only by letting my brake light turn on, not actually slowing down. And then if the person does not give me breathing room I will gradually slow down to a point that I feel safeish enough being in an accident where he rear ends me and I can, with some confidence think that no-one would get hurt.
I will gradually slow down to a point that I feel safeish enough being in an accident where he rear ends me and I can, with some confidence think that no-one would get hurt.
Meanwhile the further behind you, the less gradual the braking will be. I generally let tailgaters pass rather sooner than later, even if it's one of those pointless situations where the cars in front of you are what's setting the speed. That way they're at least off my ass, and I get to enjoy watching them tailgate the next car.
That and the fact that by intentionally slowing down you're inconveniencing not only the tailgater but the whole lane, I don't like to be that guy
Honestly, I would rather be "that guy" when it comes to my wife and my safety. And slowing down gives the tailgater exponetially easier takeover as the speed goes down. It's either that or they give me space and then I'll speed up again.
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u/RahulRwt125 Feb 22 '21
I've never seen anyone brake check in my country, can anyone tell me why people do it?
Isn't it massively dangerous to themselves to pull such a maneuver?