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Comment by PacifyFish | Hacker News Reader

Similar to how being an asshole and flipping someone off while driving is not illegal, or how being an asshole and tailgating someone is not illegal, brake checking a tailgater certainly makes you an asshole, but it is not illegal.

Social responsibility be damned.

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It is illegal in many states under 'aggressive driving' or 'road rage'.

Feel free to feel smug whole dying in a ditch by the side of a road. Or you know maintain a reasonable following distance so sudden stops are a non issue...

Really, when it's ego vs several tons at highway speeds it's not ego that wins. Further, 'I thought I saw something' is a blanket exception for sudden breaking.

Im just saying self driving cars should be required to drive within a reasonable expectation of a normal, safe, predicable manner. If they are not there yet, maybe they shouldn't be on the roads yet.

They are. If this was about sudden evasive manovers and lane changes then sure, but simply breaking more frequently is a non issue because again any car can break at any time and you need to deal with such reasonable and normal behavior.

Based on the number of comments from people that live in these town I do not believe this is simply more frequent braking. It sounds like it happen a lot and unnecessarily, which adds risk and frustration to humans also using the road.

People are more likely to notice and remember self driving cars, so you can't assume they are accurately reporting frequency vs. just remember more frequently and or a biased sample.

...someone brake checking is the one running on ego. And they're the one likely to get hit despite being "technically correct".

If someone is dangerously tailgating me, I will very lightly brake-check them (barely slowing down) because the vast majority of tailgaters seem to be mediocre drivers who aren't thinking deeply about their actions. If they persist, I'll slow down and let them overtake.

When I'm driving, I'm constantly scanning for bad (i.e. unsafe or unpredictable) drivers in all directions. Once spotted, the choice is either to be well past them or well behind them. Usually the choice is easy.

Tailgating is a sign of gross incompetence. I never said you should break check, but if your going to have an accident it's better to be rear ended than hit something and then been rear ended with a much larger speed differential.

PS: Tail gaters are creating a highly dangerous situation so slowing down without jamming the breaks is the correct response.

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