No. The other driver almost hurt himself following too closely, and not paying attention. There is nothing exceptional about emergency braking in a residential neighbourhood. Your prime responsibility when driving a car is in the direction of travel.

Yeah, that would be hard.

It sounds more like instead of learning a lesson about following too closely, he decided to turn the mix of anger or fear onto you. Hopefully, with time removed from the situation, he will realize that he should not follow as closely. And hopefully you won't be too affected by guilt-manipulation. (Obviously, it's a good idea when something behind you cannot slow quickly, to try not to brake too quickly, but in theory, a scooter should be able to stop very quickly.) With hard calls, you only can do your best with the information you had at the time.

Be wary at higher speeds of veering due to animals. Insurance could blame you if you start an accident and don’t end up hitting the animal.

Makes sense. I did not veer because it's a very dangerous road and in Rome veering to dodge means you are hitting a scooter (scooters zip through traffic in Rome).

The reason why the guy behind me survived is because he did veer when I slammed the breaks