I have never heard of it before joining the platform and now see it almost everyday (always fails). I cant imagine stuff like that happening in germany. Why are people doing this ? What is the intention? It almost looks suicidal (sorry for strong language).
Thanks all for your help and sorry for my bad english.
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It’s usually a response to tailgating, driving very close to the driver in front, or other erratic driving. The person doing it is *thinking* “Tailgating me is bad because what if I have to make a sudden stop? I will teach the person tailgating me this lesson by making a sudden stop.”
This is not genius-level reasoning, and no traffic authority endorses it. That explains all the videos of it going terribly wrong. It would probably happen less often if there was a safer way to signal “You are following me too closely.”
Some people when they have a really aggressive driver behind them, who is driving too close, will tap their brakes in order to tell the person behind them to slow down or they will hit them.
In the US if you rear end someone you are at fault. So the people doing the break check figure if it causes an accident it will be the fault of the person driving too close.
It’s very stupid and dangerous.
There is a linguistic issue that may be behind this question. Since you are worried that it “looks suicidal,” you have understood what a brake check is already. It is when a driver who is upset that someone is tailgating them (driving too close behind them) brakes suddenly to scare the other driver into backing off. This is both dangerous and in most jurisdictions, if not all jurisdictions, illegal.
The purpose of the name “brake check,” though, is because the people who do this need to claim some sort of plausible excuse for it. It is illegal to slam on your brakes in order to scare another driver, even if that driver is already doing something illegal themselves. However, these people give as an excuse that they didn’t mean to scare anybody at all — they were just “checking their brakes” to make sure they worked.
What I sometimes do is that I press the brake just enough that the brake light goes on, but I still don’t really feel the slightest braking. I thought everyone did just that too.
Hi, it happens in Germany as well. You don’t see it often because of the strict data privacy laws which deter dashcam videos from being put online. You can check out Sascha Fahrnünftig or DDG.
It’s called Nötigung mit absichtlichem Abbremsen in German. And if recorded can be directly used to start criminal proceedings.
in my country who ever is back is faulty since technically u have to give enough distance, so if ur enough of a dick to brake check smn, its not ur fault and his insurance pays all the damages
When operating a vehicle, you have the responsibility to maintain control of your vehicle.
If you rear end another vehicle, you have clearly failed to maintain sufficient space between the vehicles and/or have failed to maintain control of your vehicle. A driver rear ending another vehicle is almost always determined to be at fault.
To be fair, traffic can stop for any reason at any time, and we need to be paying attention.
Brake checking is the act of slamming on the brakes intentionally to scare and effectively threaten the driver behind you. Usually, it involves abruptly cutting in front first so that there is not much time to stop effectively.
If you get rear ended for it, then without video evidence the other driver may even be held at fault.
Angry drivers will do this against other vehicles to get back at them for prior wrongdoing, real or perceived. E.g. if they are being tailgated (close following), they may brake check to force the other driver to back off, or they may do it purely because they are angry. I’ve seen it happen because a driver was going too slow in a passing lane.
Brake checking can also be done as an insurance scam. Attempting to get rear ended on purpose so that they can either get an insurance claim OR just get cash from the other driver.
When I was young, I remember hearing about a scammer that would drive up and down the downtown strip all night with their brake lights disconnected, and then brake check other drivers. They’d get rear ended, say “Eh, it’s not that bad. I could get it replaced for $400 instead of going through insurance.” They got caught when a police officer pulled them over and found the disconnected brake light bulbs in the trunk.
Brake checking is definitely dangerous. Attempting or threatening to cause a collision is illegal, and it may be charged as reckless driving. It’s caused by anger and frustration.
German driving culture is admittedly different than other countries. I imagine that Germany’s higher respect for traffic regulations and simply less rude behaviour on the road results in less road rage incidents.
North America has a very weird vehicle culture. We like to black out our windows and treat our vehicles like our own private space where we can do and say anything we want. We interact with vehicles like inanimate objects instead of as real living people with feelings.
Most have already replied what brake check is…I’ll reply to “why would anyone do this” and the simple answer is that driving in the states is absolute savagery in a lot densely populated areas/cities.
A good chunk of the population doesn’t pay attention to anything beyond the end of their own car’s hood. Brake checkers are just those that are trying to “teach a lesson” to a tailgating driver behind them.
In a rear end collision, most insurance companies will default to the driver that rear ended the vehicle in front of them to be at fault. So brake checkers will see this as a win/win, they taught the driver behind them “a lesson” and now they think they are owed insurance money because they got rear ended. If police does a good job investigating the accident, both drivers will be held accountable.
Anyways, this is a long winded way of saying “EGO”.
Ich würd’s ausbremsen nennen, oft out of spite — wobei ich *dafür* grad keine Übersetzung griffbereit habe. ^^
As an American who had a brother that lived in Germany, and visited frequently, I constantly bring up Germany’s way of managing traffic on highways as an example of how things should be. In my albeit limited experience, and I could get some of the details wrong, but almost all of your laws are designed to keep the Autobahns moving. Even speeding is mostly dealt with tickets by mail. Cops stop people for obstructing traffic, not helping provide support for vehicles on the side of the road, etc. Here, its the opposite. Cops don’t enforce leaving the left lane for passing, and instead pull people over for speeding causing even more traffic issues. Because the left lane for passing isn’t enforced, you have people driving whatever speed they want in any lane they want. Forcing people to have to pass on the right, etc. Its not uncommon to come across a mini traffic jam caused by someone in the left lane going exactly the same speed as the people in the right. So, people get frustrated and start tailgating the person holding up traffic, and the person who is being tailgated who has no self awareness that what they are doing is dangerous enough, will brake check the person behind them. Neither behavior is right, but the person in the passing lane going slow is really the instigator of the whole problem. So many of our traffic issues in the states could be improved by taking a page from Germany’s book. Some states have started posting signs like “slower traffic keep right” but no one pays attention to them, and the cops really aren’t enforcing them.
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