Make it make sense
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A few years ago, I was bitching and moaning about a jam, and my pal just said "you're not in traffic, you are traffic".
I know it's nothing more than a cheeky soundbite but just reframing it like that and knowing I'm part of the problem rather than the exception has made me a lot calmer on slow moving roads.
Plus it has encouraged me to either use public transport more, or just drive to a park-and-ride a mile or three out, and run the rest - facilities permitting of course.
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CGP grey did a video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHzzSao6ypE
Basically one car breaking too much will make the following brake even more and so on until one stops and there's a jam. There is no clear reason like a road blockage or an accident, just compounding slow down.
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99% of traffic like this is caused by people following too closely.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Yeah ideally you put 3 seconds between you and the car in front of you. Gives a nice, springy cushion to not brake as much. Your mechanic will also be surprised how much longer your brakes last.
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It's the people not zipper merging correctly. You have idiots entering that are not up to speed and you have idiots breaking for the idiots not up to speed.
On ramps should be required to have their lane not end abruptly which causes the panic. The on ram should continue for at least a 1/4 mile.
Adding to this, more collector-distributor roads that parallel the highway on both sides to reduce the weaving of people entering and exiting.
This is also why I hate cloverleaf highway intersections, the merge period is way too short and the speed delta can be high.
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Most traffic jams actually act as a kind of compression wave moving backwards through traffic. Something as small as a squirrel running across the road can cascade into an hour-long jam.
One person brakes, then the person behind them, then the person behind them, but each time they are getting closer to each other (nobody stays equidistant from the car in front of them when braking). This causes a greater and greater slowdown as more cars are compacted into a tighter space, which travels backwards in traffic like a wave. Often the person who caused it doesn't even realize anything happened.
A lot of mapping software actually estimates a given traffic slowdown by treating traffic as a fluid with a wave moving backwards through it.
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Too many seeds. I’m more of a jam band kinda guy.
Too much improvisation. I'm more of an nba jam kinda guy.
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Too many dudes doing slam dunks on fire. I'm more of a log jam kinda guy.
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A few years ago, I was bitching and moaning about a jam, and my pal just said "you're not in traffic, you are traffic".
I know it's nothing more than a cheeky soundbite but just reframing it like that and knowing I'm part of the problem rather than the exception has made me a lot calmer on slow moving roads.
Plus it has encouraged me to either use public transport more, or just drive to a park-and-ride a mile or three out, and run the rest - facilities permitting of course.
Switch to a motorbike, then you can experience righteous anger at the handful of drivers slowing down hundreds of bikes and people in buses.
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It's the people not zipper merging correctly. You have idiots entering that are not up to speed and you have idiots breaking for the idiots not up to speed.
On ramps should be required to have their lane not end abruptly which causes the panic. The on ram should continue for at least a 1/4 mile.
Cars cause traffic. Cars changing lanes causes traffic. Cars merging causes traffic. Only solution, get rid of the cars and the system built to cater to them.
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Idk why they call it a bottleneck, when it's a straight line through the opening of the bottle.
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It's the people not zipper merging correctly. You have idiots entering that are not up to speed and you have idiots breaking for the idiots not up to speed.
On ramps should be required to have their lane not end abruptly which causes the panic. The on ram should continue for at least a 1/4 mile.
wrote last edited by [email protected]people not zipper merging correctly
Zipper merging is more complicated than driving straight forward and requires both lanes to slow down significantly relative to the cars in front and behind them.
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Yeah ideally you put 3 seconds between you and the car in front of you. Gives a nice, springy cushion to not brake as much. Your mechanic will also be surprised how much longer your brakes last.
wrote last edited by [email protected]I've always said that if you're using your brakes on the highway and it's not for an emergency stop, you're too close to the car in front of you. Even if they're the type that are on and off the brake constantly, if their speed isn't changing much you shouldn't need to follow their example. Of course I try to get out from behind them because they are like crying wolf and one of those brakes might be for real.
When caught in a traffic jam I look for a semi to get behind. They won't accelerate fast like some car drivers do, and they don't stop as fast either. Plus they can see better if things area really starting to move or not. Keep a few car lengths behind them and while everyone is doing the start and stop motions, I'm keeping a slow but steady speed usually without needing to brake at all. It's also less stressful.
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It's the people not zipper merging correctly. You have idiots entering that are not up to speed and you have idiots breaking for the idiots not up to speed.
On ramps should be required to have their lane not end abruptly which causes the panic. The on ram should continue for at least a 1/4 mile.
The best flowing highways I've ever seen were ones where the on ramp didn't end, but became the off ramp for the next exit. Obviously you can't have that everywhere, but it's basically a free flow lane that gives time for adjustment. I've also seen on ramps (older ones) that aren't much more than a turn lane, and dangerous if you don't know the area and traffic patterns.
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Switch to a motorbike, then you can experience righteous anger at the handful of drivers slowing down hundreds of bikes and people in buses.
Funnily enough, I'm planning on getting my licence at some point.
I've no interest in motorbikes, I would just love to learn how to ride one safely.
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Do you know of a paper that describes this kind of traffic motion?
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Bumper riders
Lane switchers
Brake checkers
Ramp users switching lanes wayyy too late -
A few years ago, I was bitching and moaning about a jam, and my pal just said "you're not in traffic, you are traffic".
I know it's nothing more than a cheeky soundbite but just reframing it like that and knowing I'm part of the problem rather than the exception has made me a lot calmer on slow moving roads.
Plus it has encouraged me to either use public transport more, or just drive to a park-and-ride a mile or three out, and run the rest - facilities permitting of course.
Yeah that was a through the matrix moment for me too.
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Too many dudes doing slam dunks on fire. I'm more of a log jam kinda guy.
Too many opportunities for death. I'm more of a signal jam kinda guy.
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Cars cause traffic. Cars changing lanes causes traffic. Cars merging causes traffic. Only solution, get rid of the cars and the system built to cater to them.
This is the correct answer. There isn't a city on earth that has fixed congestion by building for more cars. It's the places that build for trains and bikes that are best for driving, ironically.
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Funnily enough, I'm planning on getting my licence at some point.
I've no interest in motorbikes, I would just love to learn how to ride one safely.
I understood them as expensive toys, like an old Italian project car that's fun to tool around in in nice weather, but when you need to get to work, you drive your car, but experiencing its role in SEA completely change my perspective. They can be cheap, boring, functional machines, with a suprisingly high capacity. that even a dog can perform basic maintenance on and keep running for decades, that work just fine in rain.
