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The story
When videos of aggressive tailgating circulate online, some comments defend the offender by claiming “the person being tailgated is partly to blame too.” In a thread on 5ch’s “Live News (Anything Goes)” board, users clashed over why this kind of defense keeps popping up. The discussion tangled together criticism of the dangerous driving itself with gripes about slow drivers and sudden lane changes that provoke road rage in the first place.
(。´･ω･)?
Source: youtube.com / Original article here
What people said
So this is what the mindset of a 'NanG' (regular of 5ch's Anything Goes board) looks like
They just want attention. Same with the guys posting inflammatory replies — anyone playing devil's advocate for zero money is just lonely
At the end of the day it's just a binary — the other guy's either at fault or not — so it's not even that deep a perspective
That's a brutal case of needing validation
But for some reason those guys think it's a driver's duty to air their grievances, lecture people, and set them straight
Aren't you doing the exact same thing right now, though
And out of the tens of thousands of cars on the road, if a tailgater bothers to fixate on one specific car, there's usually a reason
What's the significance of a kei car having a white plate?
I don't think they mean a white-plate registration — probably a regional 'local pride' plate (gotouchi number), no?
I bet those people are slow and do-things-at-their-own-pace in real life too
Just pass them cleanly on the left
Sure, technically that's not allowed, but it beats stewing in stress forever or tailgating them
Getting irritated at a slowpoke like that is a waste of energy, just blow past them already
Those types swerve into the left lane the instant you try to move there
And that's the opening bell of the match lol
I don't even bother with idiots who can't tell the difference between driving and everything else
Thanks for the reply
in most cases there's some cause on the victim's side too
Not fault, but a cause
Yeah, that's fair
Not bad, not responsible
But there's often a cause
Re: #83
It'd be more accurate to call it a 'trigger for tailgating' than a 'cause of being tailgated'
If some car crawls through its right turn and only 3 cars manage to get through, I lose it and want to tailgate them
And of course it's exactly those intersections where it takes forever for the light to turn green again
Are you really in that much of a hurry?
I just don't get that mindset
tailgating and accidents would probably vanish from the world
No way that would actually happen
Guys who naturally assume 'I'm the exception' like this are usually the ones doing the tailgating
I go all-in on it to set the world straight and make them regret it
Don't give me some childish excuse like that
Tailgated: "No, an ambulance was coming through"
Tailgater: "Shut up, just ignore it!"
The logic there is beyond comprehension
Reality:
😡 "Hurry up already!"
🤤 "…(can't hear you)"
😡 "At least pull over to the side!"
🤤 "…"
If you want to go that fast, buy yourself a private jet
Honestly, there are constantly cars getting caught doing insane speeds
Background and Key Points
Japan criminalized tailgating outright in 2020, after a widely covered 2019 incident on the Joban Expressway in which a driver forced a car to stop and the passenger was later fatally beaten by a bystander. The revised Road Traffic Act created a standalone offense, “obstructive driving” (妨害運転罪), covering tailgating, unnecessary sudden braking, and similar acts, with penalties up to three years in prison or a 500,000 yen fine — rising to five years if it causes a dangerous situation on an expressway. This context matters because it reframes the 5ch debate: in Japan this isn’t just etiquette, it’s a specific crime, yet the thread argues about it purely as a moral question.
What the thread actually splits on is not whether tailgating is wrong — nearly everyone agrees it is — but whether a tailgated driver’s behavior (crawling in the passing lane, blocking a right-turn arrow, driving “at their own pace”) counts as a “cause” (原因) short of “fault” (悪さ). Posters like >>46 and >>83 try to thread that needle, while others (>>90, >>22) insist that framing still functions as an excuse for the tailgater and should be dropped.
One relevant fact never raised in the thread: on Japanese expressways, lingering in the right-hand (overtaking) lane without passing is itself a separate violation, 通行帯違反, distinct from tailgating. So the “slow right-lane driver” the thread keeps citing as a provocation is often also technically breaking the law — a detail that would complicate the “cause vs. fault” argument but goes unmentioned by any poster.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Anything Goes board) thread “[Seven Mysteries] What’s the deal with the morons who keep defending tailgating videos with ‘the victim’s at fault too’?“
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