That video looks like a combined lane change and brake check on the part of the Tesla.
* and disappointed
It does not absolve the other person from responsibility for not following the required safety protocol. The car in front of them might have had to brake for a perfectly legitimate reason.
I mean, suppose that the other driver was driving while drunk. They might have arrived to their destination safely without the asshole in front, but that's not an excuse against a DUI ticket.
Simply, drivers don't use their common sense, and just their normal daily driving routine is already endangering to people around.
Maintaining a safe configuration of cars on the road is the collective job of everyone who is driving on it; and conversely, it takes just one person to ruin it for everybody who is doing the right thing. So it really needs to be a part of the culture of driving for that to work. And we don't have that in US, unfortunately (though, to be fair, there are far worse places to drive in).
I rear-ended a woman who did that to me. When she cut in front of me in my lane there was not nearly enough distance between us for me to fully stop when she then suddenly braked.
I'm not sure what I really was even supposed to even do in a situation like that — I suppose as soon as she cut over I should have just assumed the worst was coming and hit my brakes right away?
For the multiple cars crash, if not clear cut, without video recording, all the insurances pool themselves together and consider the drivers as not responsible. Nobody cannot tell if you stopped, got hit in the back and then the front or the opposite.
I admittedly find it a little bit confusing how many people here assign complete blame to exactly one participant.
The question is if in this case the action can be considered as deliberate. The "software" did it, is it deliberate? Is it considered as a failure of the car like the breaking of mechanical part?
This is new and the justice will have to figure it out and I am very happy not to have to figure it out.
I'd say there is only one car which did a clearly illegal action (sudden lane change followed by brake checking), so the guilt is 100% on them.
It's also true that the car behind probably could've been more assertive in braking harder to avoid reaching the Tesla (I wish there was a dashcam to see it from a better angle). But they didn't do anything illegal per se.
Also, that second car driver might've been worried of braking too hard to avoid getting themselves rear ended, which is a legitimate concern when having to break hard in traffic. Of course in the end they got rear ended anyway, but couldn't have known that prior to it happening.
These are all realistic sudden stop issues that our laws mostly accommodate.
In fact the worst thing to do is to stop suddenly.
Even if a wheel falls off, you do not slam on the brakes unless you want to lose even more control.
This was the Tesla braking as hard as possible to a complete stop. The following driver reacted quickly and had they not been paying attention the accident would have been much much worse.
Basically if you hit a car from behind, it’s your fault, every time.
Incorrect. If you brake check someone (what the Tesla did), the front car is at fault.
