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It's never illegal to stop in reaction to a perceived dangerous situation.

Correct, but if you read and watched the video you would see the Tesla changes lanes and slows to a stop in response to *zero* events ahead of them.

It is a neat fact to bring up but that doesn't apply here. The Tesla is still at fault and you would be hard pressed to find any adjuster or courts agreeing with you thanks to this excellent video evidence.

My point is if someone were to respond "I thought I saw a deer/child/car swalloing pothole" they wouldnt be at fault. It's their right to avoid perceived issues. And its not like the tesla sufficiently cut off the stopping distance for the car behind it (one lane to the left) that car was able to brake substantially/sufficiently (hard to tell exactly in the video).

Luckily it's not up the adjuster, it's up the courts.

Fortunately, the law follows a "reasonable person" standard, not a "the AI tried its best" standard. No reasonable person would have perceived any dangerous situation in these circumstances. Any person who suddenly slowed to a crawl and moved into the far left lane on a fast-moving highway for no discernable reason would be found to be substantially at fault here.

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