Re: \"A**hole Viper driver\"
Chuck,
you're right, an officer can ticket whomever he deems worthy of receiving a ticket in any state. But that was not what I or Rollo were addressing. I was addressing Rollo's statement "Ask any officer, it was his fault no matter what the car in front of him did.", in relation to the Viper purposefully braking to make the tailgater back off, causing the Camaro to loose control.
Rollo believes that it would be the tailgater's fault entirely in this situation. It very well might be in the state that this occurred, I have no idea if it would be. Rollo says that if you ask any officer who's fault it was, that officer would reply that it was the tailgater's fault.
Well, since Rollo and I are from the same state, and I not wanting a bruddha' to head out onto the streets of Cali with the wrong impression that you can willfully brake on any a*hole tailgater, I thought I would give him the skinny on how Cali law would interpret this whole situation, especially if given witnesses.
If you were to ask any California officer who's fault it would be, describing the situation as in the LSI post, AND there were witnesses, they would say it was BOTH their fault. The Camaro for tailgating and the Viper for committing ROAD RAGE.
California says that suddenly braking in anger to address a tailgater is Road Rage. Road Rage is subject to penalties under section 245 a) of the California Penal Code (Assault with a deadly weapon other than a firearm).
Paul,
true, you may not have ever heard of the person getting rear ended getting a ticket, but I am sure that you have heard of the person committing Road Rage getting arrested. It was truly fortunate that no one got hurt in this situation.
As a side note, I was involved in an accident a few years back where this **** came up behind me fast and boxed me in. When the person in front of me finally sped up, it gave me enough space to move up and over one lane. Apparently the guy tailgating me wasn't too happy with how long it took for this to occur. So he decided to speed up, cut me off, give me the finger, then brake on me, causing me to crash into him. To make a long story short, there were witnesses, I didn't get a ticket and he got free room and board. What blew my mind was that he tried to accuse me of tailgating, and that he had to brake to avoid something in the road.