I'm still usure what happened, but it seems plausible and not at all unusual that if somebody pulls in front of you, forcing you to slow in order not to hit them, then you might brake less hard than you can, leading to a tailgating situation, which would quite naturally be accompanied by a little honking in New England. But one should desist from that very quickly and return to normal following distance as one gets back up to speed. I'm not proud of it, but I've done that. I'm not doing it again. Just sayin'.