Who said anything about an accident? People end up in grid-locked traffic all the time. They don't know why. It could be an accident, but it probably isn't, and in any case, they don't know. And it's really rare that you see them flipping out and ramming other cars. Cars get blocked by other cars all the time. A driver who loses it in those situations doesn't have people making all kinds of excuses for him/her. So how, again, is this different?

In the Seattle incident, no one did anything to this driver or his car until he started ramming people. So they got in his way -- they didn't threaten him or do anything to him. What exactly did he "panic" about? If I'm driving and a bunch of pedestrians cross in front of me, against the light, would it be understandable for me to say I "panicked" and start ramming them? Think about what you're saying here.