"ARW" wrote in message
...
I've only been tailgated once in ... lets think... half a million
miles
or so. That doesn't mean it won't happen tomorrow. A colleague of mine
was braking for some roadworks, and looked in his mirror. Swerved into
the cones, and watched the car he'd been following get tailgated.

I was driving along a residential road, at about 20 because there were lots
of driveways with kids playing in them, and I didn't trust any of the kids
not to do something stupid. Suddenly from a driveway that had no children
near it I saw a football roll lazily into the road. I braked to avoid it and
in case a child appeared - and sure enough a toddler toddled out from behind
a gatepost, straight into the road to pick up the ball.

Luckily I was going slow enough that my emergency stop stopped me well
before the child. The car behind me stopped fast as well - and the three
cars behind him hit each other and then him - luckily without catapulting
him into me.

There was a lot of arguing and I got most of the blame for braking without a
good reason - until the child's mother rushed out to check that her son was
OK and to thank me for stopping in time. Even then one of the guys thought I
had "caused" him to crash into the car in front.

Surprisingly, although I gave my name to all the drivers as a witness, none
of their insurance companies contacted me for a statement.