Tailgating

There have been only two occasions when I have been tailgated and on both occasions I dealt with it effectively.

The first was on Victoria road in Sydney. I tapped my brakes and then drove on. That made the guy behind look foolish so he then passed me and came to a stop immediately in front of me. He then got out of his car to abuse me and I got out to push back. I told him that tailgating was a dangerous and illegal practice. This pulled him up a bit and when he saw that I had a witness in my car -- Nola Holland -- he backed away and drove off

The second occasion was on the Southeast freeway in Brisbane. I was going at the precise speed signed when a car came up close behind me. I gradually eased off my speed until I was doing about 40kmh

At that stage the car behind passed me, stopped in front of me and the driver got out. He was a cop. I pointed out however that he had been tailgating me, which was a dangeous and illegal practice, and that there was no minimum speed. At that point, he became somewhat more humble. In a last ditch effort, however, he said that he would have to talk to his sergeant about it. I said he should and that was the end of it

The law has subsequently been changed so that there now is an offence of "obstructive driving" and I sometimes wonder if I had a hand in that.

I don't foresee it but if ever I were driving on a major highway and some great truck began to tailgate me (there was a recent report of that in Victoria), I could be inclined to jam on the anchors and cause a huge crash. I would probably die in the aftermath but I might cause a truckie or two to think twice before bombing himself out with ephedrine. Better an old guy like me dying than some young family. And there have been plenty of reports of young families dying in collisions with trucks.

Most likely, however, I would just slow down, as I have in the past. I've got the strong nerves needed for that