I feel like I can take a middleground on the whole tailgating issue, as a commuting biker I tend to experience both ends of the equation quite regularly and IMHO the problem lies in the extremes in attitude.

On the one hand if you drive/ride a lot and have good confidence in the vehicle and roadcraft in general (frequently the case with professional van and truck divers) it can be extremely frustrating when people don't practice good lane and speed discipline. I don't mean people maintaining a decent pace (it's your problem if you want to go faster than posted limits and they don't) I mean people either:
A. Driving below the posted limit (within reason)
B. Accelerating to speed absurdly slowly or slowing to 2mph to take a corner you could hit at 10-20 comfortably
C. Hogging the outside/passing lane because THEY are going as fast as THEY want to go so why should they speed up or slow down to get out of everybodys way? (C**TS!)

Under the above circumstances I understand why people end up tailgating, in fact I think it happens without much of a conscious effort most of the time. They are going so far below the pace the seems reasonable that you close the gap without realising. Getting to this stage is understandable/inevitable, it's what you do next that defines you as a responsible road user:

A responsible driver/rider at this point backs off, the point has already been made to the driver in front. They know they are going slower than you want to go or that you want to pass in the passing lane they are hogging. Sitting on their bumper is not only dangerous to both of you but it's obnoxious and likely to be counter productive. When you see someone driving too close your natural response is to slow down for safety or simply as a fuck you to the other guy. Even if you were about to get out of their way you might change your mind and think "screw you buddy I got the hint but now your just being rude".

When I back away I find people let me through far more often, wheras in the past when i've just tail gated them like a dick it's got me nothing but two angry motorists (and a hugely elevated chance of an incident). The lorry driver could have left a bigger gap but it didn't look that unreasonable (plus lorries have a hard time gaining speed and are naturally inclined (and taught) to preserve it where possible).

It might not be that unfair to suggest he was antagonising the car infront, but it pales into insignificance compared to...

.....the other side of the equation (which blue peugeot falls squarely into) who are generally IMHO far worse/more dangerous. The one's that adopt an imperious and selfish attitude to speed and road position. "I'm going as fast as I want to go and there's car on the inside that I'll pass in about 30seconds so I'm just going to sit in the outside lane going 2mph faster than slow lane traffic, because why should I have to go to the trouble of changing lanes to let someone else go faster than I want to go!"

Touching the brakes to give a tailgater a shock done properly is fine (I might even go so far as to recommend it) but holy shit! I think it'd be dangerous to scrub more than 1 or 2mph never mind an illegal stop on a dual carageway. Even if there was a mechanical reason for stopping it's still illegal to stop there without pulling off to the side.

Either way 45k in damages feels like pretty just deserts. I dearly hope he got at least a 12 month ban to boot. There's slipping up and then there's premeditated dangerous driving!

I usually try to see things from everybody's perspective when it comes to stuff like this but the Peugot driver is so disproportionately stupid and reckless than I can't really even try to defend him/her. I get why they might have been annoyed but that all became irrelevant the moment they tried to cause an accident!

Alright, I'm confused, is this christmas or ground hogs day?

Yeah.....FUCK BICYCLERS ya buncha no stop-sign-stoppin' road-hog gimp motherfuckers! Take a bath!

Alpha hog might have turned and stomped that crock's head, eh?

rode that hog into the ground...

*bandwidth hog!

You'd be surprised to discover how many thousands of so-called intelligent peeps be unable to execute the simplest of opposable digit tasks. My ex-father-in-law, a published, successful pulmonary physiologist at a world-renown hospital couldn't wield a shovel to save his life. I often refer to this line from a Heinlein novel as a road map to what is is to be an actual, human being:
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." — Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

If you live on planet now, are located in a first-worldlier country with a reasonable amount of "education" , are over 30 years of age and are not approaching the level-up to polymath or renaissance person, yer a fuckin' lazystupid

Yes blame America, not the billionaire playboy with 15 ton of cocaine who beat his slave to death. That guy isn't the problem, it's America. That isn't the guy who's family lives like hogs, breaking the laws that don't apply to them off the fats of Oil while their population starves to death, it's America's fault.

That said, news of that army manual is striking, 99% of american citizens won't ever have heard of it unfortunately. This is what happens when you allow a military industrial complex do what they want with zero oversight. Just one more part of the corporate world movement that controls everything because they can afford to buy anyone off, and clearly has no qualms if 99% of the world lives in abject poverty if they themselves can have a few more billion to line their secret bank accounts. Here in the states the fact that they control the media as well, keeps most Americans completely ignorant of the problem.

That said I don't trust this news report 100%. They too are clearly just trying to sell fear.

You were snoring too loud and hogging the covers. I took that as a hint.

He just isn't educated enough on history to understand what he's talking about. He's very intelligent and he makes very good arguments, but he relates all those arguments to his experiences working around Law Enforcement and what hog ties them.

Now if he saw Law Enforcement wiping out and destroying city blocks or paying gunman to drag women out of houses and murder and rape children than maybe he'd have a different idea of what this NSA thing means.

The fact is that he hasn't seen jack shit, because he hasn't stood in front of an Israeli bulldozer, he hasn't looked into a mass grave in East Timor. He's just not informed.

Also, it restricting used games isn't rumour anymore. You have to install games and then that disc is locked to your account. If you buy a used game, you have to pay MS, i think they said $10, to be able to then lock it to a different account. To be honest, that's not so bad, it's not like Nintendo where it's locked to a fucking console instead of an account, and you can change it. I just wonder if the publishers get the money or if MS hogs it all.

The worst news is that they will not be supporting Indie devs beyond what they do with the 360. Typical short sighted move by MS. If PS4 supports indies like Steam and Apple does, there's a massive potential there!

I hate cyclists and no man in LEGGINGS will ever get an ounce of respect from me.

Altogether? given the chance I'd stop my car, get out and physically run into his stupid road hogging bike which couldn't stop.

Yeah. Isn't he the guy who got rich, in part, by exploiting the poor who are denied welfare and forced to work two minimum wage jobs which still puts them below the poverty line and because they're forced out of their houses because they can't afford rent on the shit wage he pays them they end up living with their drug-dealer brothers where their six-year-old kid finds a gun and murders a classmate while mom is away since six AM working at Dick Clark's restaurant?

Sorry, but I have little in the way of pity for that douche. He lived a long life, high off the hog and helped to create suffering and misery through his exploitation and his lack of empathy.

If he keeps hogging down crickets like that, he isn't going to be hungry at dinner time.