[uoaei]

Auto incidents happen in relatively constrained scenarios, and the resulting damage can strongly imply the actions that led up to the incident. Not so with humans beefing over mundane matters.

My first thought is to re-tool the concept of self-defense, but this would require the acknowledgement that verbal abuse constitutes violence, which I am not sure many are willing to accept, and could get out of hand when it comes to what exactly "disproportionate retaliation" means in context.