Make it make sense
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They called it "ghost jam" but man, i prefer blackberry jam.
marionberry or nothing
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In one of the Mission Impossible movies Tom Cruise is supposed to have a boring job no one will ask him about and the movie shows this by having the character talk about traffic patterns. I thought it was interesting information then and think it is interesting now.
Lmao I remember seeing this exact scene as a kid, thinking as he was talking "oh that sounds cool as fuck" and then only from how the scene played out realizing it was supposed to be a significantly boring concept
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Iirc, the answer is to have someone drive slowly and let other cars pass. It creates a buffer zone that regulates the flow back to normal pace. Or at least that's what I remember from New Scientist's video from like a decade ago.
I used to just idle when traffic moved. Slowed down way before i was even close to the car ahead. Played a game where i was trying to move at a constant speed or max fuel econ. Much less stressful to always be moving than gas/brake every 10s, even if you're moving 5mph.
Really helps to look 3-4 cars ahead for brake lights.
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This is why I thought that maybe it would be good to have some kind of pacing cars, e.g. operated by traffic police? I.e. when you already know or can anticipate that there is a large jam building up, you bring in one pacing car on every lane at an appropriate low speed and everyone has to adjust, so the thing you mentioned won't happen.
Or we could just build trains and other alternatives to cars, which would end up cheaper, faster, safer, environmentally friendly, ...but we have big oil.
(Sry, I had to)
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Hey I studied this in grad school for a bit, and it really is just "someone does some dumb shit which leads to a cascading wave of additional people doing dumb shit which propagates backwards for miles." Basically when the offered load is getting close to the maximum load, all it takes is one person aggressively changing lanes to throw that section of highway into gridlock, and it will remain that way until the total integrated traffic flux across that incident boundary again falls below the critical offered load inflection point.
Basically, pick a lane and just stay in it. Maintain proper following distance. Counterintuitively, the following distance should be for the speed you want to drive, so even in traffic it should be like 5+ car lengths even though you are going slow. This is because it reduces the offered load, and once that number falls below the critical point, speeds will increase again. Bumper to bumper traffic basically prevents that from happening because it dampens the ability for a "speedup" wave to propagate.
Of course this is all impossible for humans. All it takes is a few idiots to throw off the balance.
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That's also why the best way to relieve traffic is to go at a slow even pace without braking. Every time the someone in heavy traffic runs up the ass of another car and brakes hard, or swerves into the "faster" lane and make someone else brake to not hit them, they cause another brake wave. If you have a few cars intentionally just hanging back and cruising with a big enough gap between them and the cars jocking for position in traffic in front of them, then their brake waves do not propogate behind you and eventually traffic just picks up pace again.
Edit: side bonus, you still get there just as fast, but with a lot less stress fighting assholes for position (minus the ones who fly past you thinking you're the asshole for not riding someone else's bumper)
Right, if you think about the creation of traffic as a negative speed wave which causes compression, and traffic alleviation as a positive speed wave which requires rarefaction, then it becomes clear why traffic is so stubborn. When people are so bunched together, no positive speed wave can propagate. Which is why you literally get to to the point where the original idiot slammed on the brakes and the traffic magically disintegrates. If everyone stayed 5 car lengths apart in traffic, that alleviation would actually propagate backwards as fast as the initial congestion.
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Yeah, in theory it's great but every time I try it people just cut in front of me then slam on brakes causing me to have to brake then adjust then repeat ad nauseam. People suck.
Then leave another gap. There are finite idiots in the world, and you cannot actually go backwards.
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Hey I studied this in grad school for a bit, and it really is just "someone does some dumb shit which leads to a cascading wave of additional people doing dumb shit which propagates backwards for miles." Basically when the offered load is getting close to the maximum load, all it takes is one person aggressively changing lanes to throw that section of highway into gridlock, and it will remain that way until the total integrated traffic flux across that incident boundary again falls below the critical offered load inflection point.
Basically, pick a lane and just stay in it. Maintain proper following distance. Counterintuitively, the following distance should be for the speed you want to drive, so even in traffic it should be like 5+ car lengths even though you are going slow. This is because it reduces the offered load, and once that number falls below the critical point, speeds will increase again. Bumper to bumper traffic basically prevents that from happening because it dampens the ability for a "speedup" wave to propagate.
Of course this is all impossible for humans. All it takes is a few idiots to throw off the balance.
so even in traffic it should be like 5+ car lengths even though you are going slow.
Other drivers: "It's free real estate"
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People drive too close to each other, someone has to slow down and then the car behind slows down a bit more. Repeat until you get to the point someone completely stops. Then the next car stops for slightly longer.
If you leave a safe distance then it wouldn't happen.
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It all starts with someone in the passing lane, not passing, and one or more pissed off people behind them
The pissed off people trying to get around causes the wave of people behind them to brake and it snowballs from there.
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Traffic is a "thing" because the slowest common perambulator is always in front
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Reaction times of humans.
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You are thr traffic.
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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.
I still lose it when I finally get to the front of the jam, and the only reason for said jam is because everyone is stopping to look at an accident on the OTHER SIDE OF THE HIGHWAY.
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It all starts with someone in the passing lane, not passing, and one or more pissed off people behind them
The pissed off people trying to get around causes the wave of people behind them to brake and it snowballs from there.
Yeah I drive around 3 hours on the highway every several weeks. Sometimes on my drive, there's obviously traffic. A lot of times it will be something like rush hour traffic, a crash, construction, etc.
But then like...a good portion of the time when I come to the very front of the "clog", I find that it is just a blockade of multiple people going incredibly slowly and taking up all lanes of traffic, refusing to move over despite the fact that they are going under the speed limit.
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I still lose it when I finally get to the front of the jam, and the only reason for said jam is because everyone is stopping to look at an accident on the OTHER SIDE OF THE HIGHWAY.
Yeah, it's frustrating.
I'm not entirely sure what the rubberneckers want to see either. "Oh look, someone critically injured next to someone who is likely deceased", because that isn't a day ruiner at the best of times.
Odd.
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Traffic John is what they called him.
Johnny Jam to his mates, or J-Traffz to his record label.
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huh, they seem to get that concept on the highways i drive on. big state though, we could live ten hours apart from each other.
Haha true! I’m talking about Southern California. Los Angeles and Orange County.
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Which one of these is the "driving lane"?
The far right.
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The far right.
So, all cars in the far right lane unless they're passing someone in the far right lane, in which case they should be in the lane that's second from the right? All other lanes should be empty at all times?
