I read the transcript of the driver interviews. The Tesla driver (or FSD, whatever) both changed lanes and braked. The officer who interviewed hime cited him under the California code for improper stopping. I suspect that it had a lot to do with the lane change occurring simultaneously with the braking.
People slam on the breaks for any number of reasons, both valid and invalid.
Failure to leave enough space to stop is 100% your fault.
You were supposed to learn this in driving school.
No, but it is a reason that is illegal, which is the point. If you brake check someone (and they have a dashcam to prove it), you'll be paying the fines and the repairs.
Change the situation: car on the other lane swerves and hits the car in front of you. so now there's a stationary hunk of metal suddenly infront of you, which you collide with.
Is it the think of metal's fault for being stationary on a highway or your fault for following too close?
Legally yes, you want to be damn sure you leave plenty room in front of you, regardless of how people cut in, because if you rear end someone it will most likely be considered your fault, regardless of the circumstances, especially if you don't have a dash cam. This goes doubly if you're driving a heavy vehicle with a longer stopping distance.
But there are plenty of cases where it can certainly be the fault (morally, and legally if you can prove it) of the person who gets rear ended - intentionally "brake checking", insurance fraud "boxing", changing lanes from a stopped lane into a moving lane, or changing lanes with insufficient room behind you and then braking hard (as we seem to have here).
that is the law in the United States, as well.
following distance is controllable only by the following car. failure to maintain adequate following distance then rear ending the car you are following, no matter what reason they stopped, is always the fault of the following car, and never the followed car.
stopping for no reason on a busy interstate is an offence, but it will cause zero crashes if people are following at safe distances.
the number of people who have forgotten what they probably didn't learn to begin with in Driver's Ed is really scaring me right now.
> that is the law in the United States, as well.
No, this is incorrect.
First of all, vehicle code is different for each state so there's no "law in the United States" as a whole.
For California, this is the section which makes brake checking illegal:
https://california.public.law/codes/ca_veh_code_section_2210...
Bullshit. You are ~50% at fault. You're just 0% financially liable in the absence of other facts. That is the default case we've concocted over the years to make financial liability easy to pin down.
If you become a road obstruction for no good reason whatever happens after after that is half or more your fault. If you manage to dodge financial liability then you are simply exploiting an edge case of the system to the detriment of everyone else.
The rules of the road are built around redundant obligations so that things don't go south whenever there's a momentary failure by one party. If you obstruct the road for no good reason you are just as at fault for the ensuing accident as someone who wasn't prepared for that obstruction.
Thank god for dashcams....
To the extent state attorney's are pre-empted by federal law, I'm sure that the NHTSA could pick up some of the slack.
what other things are you wrong about?
obstructing the road is an offense if it is not done for a good reason, but even when it does happen, it will cause zero collisions if no one is impaired and everyone is following at safe distances.
the fault of a single-lane rear-end collision is always the fault of the following vehicle. always.
No you. Literally. You need to do that.
>obstructing the road is an offense if it is not done for a good reason,
Exactly my point.
>it will cause zero collisions if no one is impaired and everyone is following at safe distances.
Hence by bit about redundant obligation and the difference between responsibility and financial liability.
>the fault of a single-lane rear-end collision is always the fault of the following vehicle. always.
Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.
Go anywhere people talk about dashcams and you'll find plenty of testimony to the tune of "had I not had video I'd have been paying for that dumb mfers poor decisions".
The financial liability defaults to the following vehicle. It can always change if there are hard facts that amount to the other guy being more responsible.
ah, there it is. the call of the moron. its how you find each other in nature: each of you drinking Mountain Dew, crying “bullshit” at everything you see.
nature is amazing.
the fault of a single-lane rear end collision is always the fault of the following vehicle. Always. if they were following at a safe distance, they would necessarily have had time to stop. that is what it means to follow at a safe distance.
“refrain from personal attacks” no. they earned what i said.
Courts have found that drivers that suddenly stop are sometimes liable instead of the car behind that was not able to stop.
In California, we have CVC 22109, which prohibits coming to an unnecessary stop.
Usually CVC 21703 -- which imposes a duty to not follow another driver when prudent, wins.
But 22109 came about, and courts often choose to weigh it heavily in fault determinations because of a couple primary circumstances:
* Cases where the leading driver deliberately instigated an accident because of road rage or to attempt insurance fraud.
* Cases where the leading driver's car had inoperable brake lights, which impaired reaction time in the trailing vehicle.
In these cases, the leading driver has been given the majority or even all of the fault of the accident.
You seem particularly passionate about this topic having popped up on multiple threads about it, and you're just not correct. The things you're saying about rear-end collisions are usually true, but not the type of things that are always-true absolutes.
You are just plain wrong. Tons of people who thought they were "right" like you have gotten rear ended by doing things like putting on a blinker, slowing for a turn and then at the last second getting back into the travel lane in time to get hit by whoever was behind them. Or they stopped in the travel lane on a blind for some dumb reason and some trucker traveling at/below the speed limit (and with the data logging to prove it, because that's how commercial trucks are these days) comes along and can't stop in time. Or they pulled out in front of other traffic and didn't accelerate appropriately (I hit someone that did this once, they paid).
> Always. if they were following at a safe distance, they would necessarily have had time to stop. that is what it means to follow at a safe distance.
The world doesn't run based on this circular logic.
Insurers are quite reasonable about this sort of thing. They all know that they all win if the more deviant driver pays and winds up with the black mark on their record.
Moreover, while you may very well dodge financial liability because the other guy can't prove it was your fault, the responding officer may very well read between the lines and issue you some sorts of moving violations that you can't dodge with court and will have the same effective net financial result.
>“refrain from personal attacks” no. they earned what i said.
Well since we're going there...
It is really a shame that drivers of your bent don't more often cross paths with someone prone to violent road rage. Society as a whole will benefit if two bad actors wind up off the roads in a "papa loved mamma" sort of way.
what THE HELL do you think "single-lane" means? your example is not a single-lane scenario, is it?
learn to read.
if you slow for a turn, change into a turn lane (if there is one), and have your blinker on, you must follow through and make the turn, even after you realize it is the wrong turn to make. changing lanes then changing back is absolutely nothing like any single-lane situation, which is what I was citing.
"single-lane" is what I said and "single-lane" is what I fucking meant. if anyone is changing lanes, it isn't a single-lane situation anymore, is it?
your reading comprehension and understanding is below that of an elementary school student.
what in the blue fuck have you been smoking to confuse those two situations? holy hell...
Have you ever actually driven on two lane (one in each direction) roads?
Whether you have or haven't I'll have you know the normal way things work is that someone slows for a turn (usually crowding to the right if their vehicle length and nature of the turn permits) the person behind them crowds toward the center line and passes them just as they're turning in. If the person turning aborted without warning at the last second and got into the middle of the lane it would necessitate some serious braking by the following person and maybe cause a rear ending depending on the speed of the road. Nobody is changing lanes during any of this.
Please never drive. You don't understand how the roads actually work in practice.
Moreover, you've been breaking them repeatedly in other contexts recently too. This is not cool, and if you keep it up we are going to have to ban you.
If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
Moreover, you've been breaking them repeatedly in other contexts recently too. This is not cool, and if you keep it up we are going to have to ban you:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34061408
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34061348
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33977864
If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
if the car in front of you suddenly comes to a complete stop, you need to have enough time to brake to prevent yourself from hitting that vehicle without changing lanes.
if you are so close that you can't stop in time in that situation, you are following too closely. end of statement.
yes that does happen to cars, by the way. a car driving at speed X which hits another car head-on at speed X will cause both cars to come to a complete stop, instantly, provided they are the same mass. usually they are not the same mass, so that car which you were following could suddenly not only stop, but change direction and accelerate towards you.
crashes also usually don't happen head-on, so you must be ready when the inevitable does happen to you or around you. sometimes you can't prevent what happens, but you can always prevent colliding into the car in front of you.
these things happen hundreds of times per day, if not thousands of times per day, EVERY DAY.
If you don't make time to stop, you do not have time to stop.
The car departed the lane next to them, dove in front of them, and stopped.
Do you always leave enough space so that a vehicle in the lane next to you can do this?
> if you are so close that you can't stop in time in that situation, you are following too closely. end of statement.
> yes that does happen to cars, by the way. a car driving at speed X which hits another car head-on at speed X will cause both cars to come to a complete stop, instantly, provided they are the same mass. usually they are not the same mass, so that car which you were following could suddenly not only stop, but change direction and accelerate towards you.
Recommended following distances are nowhere near "instant stop of vehicle in front of you plus reaction time". E.g. California recommends 3 seconds of distance at your current speed-- 286 feet. Real world stopping distances are often ~300+ feet, after 100 feet+ of reaction time (yes, I know that vehicle tests in ideal conditions often achieve something more like 150 feet not including reaction times).
The California Driver's Handbook says...
> California’s “Basic Speed Law” means that you may never drive faster than is safe for current conditions.
> You must drive slower when there is heavy traffic or bad weather. However, if you block the normal and reasonable movement of traffic by driving too slowly, you may be cited.
https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/handbook/california-driver-han...
The Tesla, FSD or not, blocked the flow of traffic and was partially at fault. The vehicles behind the Tesla were driving too fast given the conditions and were also partially at fault.
The handbook is structured to minimize the chance/danger of accidents even if other drivers aren't adhering to it.
You could ram the other vehicle. In that case no amount of safe/defensive driving would stop that.
But a safe/defensive driver will go as slow as you do if you merge in front of them.
If you exceed the traffic of the lane next to you, you will have low "following distance" to it, and a deceleration disadvantage. Plus, humans have reaction times.
If their vehicle is fully in the lane, I'm almost certainly going to be completely at fault.
I'm no expert in US law but I think there's probably at least a dozen separate laws on what is (il)legal, and I'd bet it's more than the 8 paragraphs in the source you linked to
But the nothing can instantly stop, it's physics. The recommendations, at least in Germany are so that you have enough time to react + brake if the car in front of you does an emergency braking manœuvre.
If the car merges into your lane at too little distance, like here, you have to slow down. A lot of people don't.
A car striking a pileup in front of you can come pretty close, though.
That explains a two-car collision. The following pileup is explained by drivers not leaving enough space to react and brake.
The rest of the pileup is varied. Some of it is from too short following distances or really lack of reaction.
Some drivers in the back had no ability to see the pileup ahead and had cars stop in front of them (from dissipating their energy in a collision) in less distance than they could brake.
In other words, these drivers did not leave enough distance to react and brake.
Again, recommended following distance is ~250-300 feet when stopping & reaction time can be 350-400 feet. This is OK when the car in front of you brakes, because you'll both be decelerating with a similar profile and you'll have more than 250-300 feet to stop. It is not OK when the car in front of you stops substantially faster than braking with no warning because it has hit an unknown obstacle.
assuming you are in California: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/handbook/california-driver-han...
operating a motor vehicle in the United States requires that you have this entire booklet (or that of another state; they are all nearly identical) memorized, cover to cover.
* The 3 second rule I cited: "To avoid tailgating, use the “3 second rule”: when the vehicle ahead of you passes a certain point, such as a sign, count “one-thousand-one, one-thousand- two, one-thousand-three.” This takes approximately 3 seconds. If you pass the same point before you finish counting, you are following too closely." https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/handbook/california-driver-han...
* Real-world stopping distances being longer than 3 seconds (3 seconds * 55MPH = 242 feet) -- "Assuming you have good tires, brakes, and dry pavement: At 55 mph, it takes about 400 feet to react and bring your vehicle to a complete stop."
If someone dives and brakes in front of you, with a slower starting speed and equivalent or better brakes: you're a-gonna hit them. And no one seriously proposes that you should never drive faster than the lane next to you, which would be the only way to avoid this.
The person who hit the Tesla could absolutely without question have avoided hitting them. They barely even brake. There's really no excuse. It shouldn't have even come close!
Emergencies happen, sometimes the person in front of you may completely slam their brakes on. In this case, the Tesla was WELL into the lane before they braked, so the driver behind already had every opportunity to ensure proper distance -- the Tesla had long since become "a vehicle in your lane in front of you".
Further, so many of the drivers in this video have a serious lack of driving skill, as they simply maintain speed and try to swerve around, creating dangerous conditions for themselves and everyone around them.
No. This is the difference between following a car that slows suddenly and stops versus a stationary object suddenly appears on the road in front of you.
> if the car in front of you suddenly comes to a complete stop,
This is the point - the car in front of them moved and revealed an already stationary car.
The SUV jerked out of the lane without warning or prolonged use of brake lights right behind the stopped Tesla. The following drivers suddenly have far less processing and reaction time and likely would not be aware for at least a second that the car now in front of them was actually stopped and not just slowing down.
The car in the destination lane was at a safe distance for the Tesla to enter the lane, but it aggressively maintained its slightly faster speed to close the distance to the Tesla until it crashed into the Tesla as the Tesla slowed to a stop. The Tesla did present a difficult situation for the other driver, but only in the sense that the other driver may have felt their ego would be bruised by needing to slow down for safety versus aggressive posturing that they went with instead. Watch the video again. Zoom in. The other driver did have the opportunity to slow down, keep distance, and avoid hitting the Tesla. They did not take that opportunity.
The bottom line is if all car in front you is using FSD like this, you will hit one of them sooner or later, no matter how “good” you are.
Since when people are so out of touch while having a strong opinion?
Yes, and they are illegal. But if you rear-end the car in front of you, it doesn't matter if he slammed the brakes because of a "brake check" or because of a pedestrian jumping into his lane: you did not leave enough room to safely brake.
> The bottom line is if all car in front you is using FSD like this, you will hit one of them sooner or later, no matter how “good” you are.
Not if you leave enough room in front of you to safely stop
The dad of a friend of mine once drove a rental car on the German Autobahn. He was used to driving stick shift but the rental had automatic. So he accidentally stepped on the brake (because his brain was still expecting the clutch) while in the left lane, causing the driver behind to crash into him. The driver behind him was declared 100% at fault for the accident.