[blml] By the pricking of my thumbs

[Tim West-Meads]

Ed wrote:

> I'm tooling down the highway at the posted speed limit. A car  
> approaches from behind me at high relative speed, parks himself about 
>  ten feet off my rear bumper, and starts honking his horn. I speed 
> up.  Am I to be absolved of the offense of speeding because he caused 
> the  problem? I don't think so.

I don't know who caused the problem.  If you were overtaking a line of 
trucks there was no room to pull over immediately and you speeded up in 
order to get out of the way of the car behind because you believed it 
might be a) an unmarked police car on the way to an emergency or b) a 
road-rage maniac, possibly armed and about to start shooting* or c) 
because you genuinely believed that accelerating was necessary in order 
to avoid an accident then I'd reckon any judge would through out a 
ticket (and that very few cops would issue one).  OTOH if you were 
simply being an a**ehole sitting in the right-hand lane (EBU 
jurisdiction) and blocking traffic I'd expect a ticket to stand.

*In the US I understand that categories a) and b) need not be mutually 
exclusive.

Tim