Eliza - I know the roads in your neck of the woods and really do sympathise with your situation. Those roads are, on the whole, quite narrow, with little space to pull over to let a car pass and, in your shoes, I would not have WANTED to do that anyway, being a female alone in a car with no mobile signal and very little in the way of help if the driver was actually trying to make you stop for their own reasons. This may sound paranoid, but it has happened and I believe in safe not sorry. I do think that taking the reg number, if you can see it, and then reporting the person to the Police is a good idea.

My ex-husband went on a defensive driving course and was advised not to touch the brakes, as this could be seen as a sign of aggression, but rather to operate the windscreen washers, as Jeri suggested. Cleaning the windscreen is good practice anyway and, if the washers are set just right, can hit the tailgater's screen. I've done this a number of times and they do tend to hang back a bit as a result.

I've been on the A1 in dense fog and the M1 in driving rain, both times in the right lane following and whole queue of cars and both times with the other lanes totally blocked. Everyone driving at a speed condusive to the road conditions. Both times I get the idiot charging up behind me wanting to climb over my car to then bully the one in front of me. Both times I just slowed down enough to put a good distance between me and the car in front.

Here in Maine the speed limit on our local roads is 35mph. This is an area of private dwellings, schools and shops. There are pedestrians and cyclists around as well as kids. I stay at the speed limit and, if someone tailgates me, I am not going to stop and let them pass. This is an area where exceeding the speed limit is dangerous to other road users. When someone sits too long on my tail I slow down on these roads until they back off. I see this as maybe saving the life of a child who may otherwise be in the path of a motorist driving too fast to be totally aware of what is going on ahead, or to be able to stop in case of an emergency. What happens to the idiot behind the wheel of a speeding vehicle is really not my concern - they put themselves in that position.