[kennend3]

Or.. honk your horn? Slow down without "slamming on the brakes"?

You are not legally at fault for stopping to avoid an accident.

In your scenario, lets make one small change, instead of the car being behind you it is in front... does accelerating help?

[leetcrew]

> Or.. honk your horn? Slow down without "slamming on the brakes"?

this depends on the assumption that other drivers are aware of their surroundings and following you at a safe distance. unfortunately that's not usually the case on roads in my area. you could try that, or you could avoid the entire altercation by escaping to the open space ahead of you.

> In your scenario, lets make one small change, instead of the car being behind you it is in front... does accelerating help?

is this supposed to be some kind of gotcha? let me make my point more clear. your car has brakes, an accelerator, and a steering wheel. use whichever one of those takes you in the opposite direction of the impending collision and doesn't require other drivers to avoid you instead.

[kennend3]

Your car also has a horn and a driver. Use proper defensive driving?

I've been driving for ~30 years and cant tell you when "accelerating" was my choice to avoid an accident.

I have had people attempt to change lanes without looking first. I honked and they stopped.

It is great to manufacture a situation where as you put it, people don't keep a safe distance yet the space in front of you is empty? Odd..

The more you post, the less sense you make. Perhaps read the response from the other guy as well?

[mrguyorama]

It literally also just doesn't make sense. In order for your car to actually accelerate a meaningful amount to "dodge" an accident it would have to be VERY powerful, and most likely naturally aspirated. I have a GTI with 230hp but it has enough turbo lag that if you aren't already halfway into the throttle it won't go anywhere in the time it takes for the accident to occur, never mind adding onto that the time it takes the human brain to realize something is going on and think through that moving forward would actually improve the situation. There's a reason why race car drivers have rules about how you should drive around other cars, in an attempt to PREVENT dangerous situations instead of expecting fallible humans to always do the perfect thing in dangerous situations.

It's the same thinking that people who carry guns around all day do. They think they're the protagonist in an action movie, that they can hero their way through any problem, and any limit to that is a violation of their rights.