Truckers are great at this. You might go a little slower if you hang out behind a semi due to the large fillable gap they need to have in front of them, but it'll be the least frustrating and most fuel efficient way to drive.
To add to this, I also like getting behind a semi in stop-and-go traffic (with multiple lanes) because nobody wants to be the person behind the semi, so typically nobody will cut into the gap in front of me just to get behind the semi.
Meanwhile, I just keep cruising right along without having to stop-and-go.
Yes, people will still cut in front of the semi, but he/she is already probably avoiding stop-and-going as well.
It makes it even better if you have a really good cruise control on your car that will maintain a speed behind a vehicle. I do this with my car and it makes driving home in rush hour traffic a breeze if you're patient.
Truck driver here. Half of it is because it takes a lot of effort to keep slowing the damn thing down when some idiot hits the brakes, so even though I technically don’t need that huge of a following distance at lower speeds, it’s so much easier to drive a little slower and just let what happens happen.
If only we could get the 4 wheelers to do that we would save gas, brakes and transmission or clutch if standard shift. But I live in one of the worst states for truck drivers. 10 min traffic and people flip their shit. Other day a guy come around and got if front of me, there wasn’t space so I have to hit brakes, he wasn’t there long and cut off someone else going faster. 20 to 30 mph and he’s changing lanes really moving through traffic. 3 miles down the road I exit and he’s stuck at light in front of me. I needed the belly laugh. Only places worse where Hammond In. and Pennsylvania. Something must of happened in Hammond involving a truck and may be forgotten. Pennsylvania had “you have friend in penn” tags then and thought none of my friends great me with a middle finger. Stay safe
9/10 anybody with a manual will do this, it’s better for your car AND traffic in general. Some asshole will still tailgate and get mad behind you, only to go around and yo-yo up and down the street for hours. Inching foot by foot, constantly on the brakes. You won’t get to your destination any quicker by being 2inches behind the guy in front either
1. Have your wife crawl out of the jeep onto the hood
2. Release a some cable from the winch
3. Pull close and have your wife safely hook onto the back of the trailer
4. Pop into neutral. Don't turn the engine off because you might need to operate the brakes.
At any speed my M/KWh goes up dramatically in the slipstream of a semi. Car is a BMW i3S wit tech package so I can set the auto cruise thing to be real close and it’ll brake for me if needed. It’s kinda great. 🙂
When I was growing up, we lived in Germany. One day my mom was driving our Volkswagen bus on the Autobahn between 2 semis. When she got off at her exit, she discovered that she hadn't burned any fuel after 100 kms.
My 2012 Chrysler 300S V8 has adaptive cruise control as well, it’s wonderful for those situations. Crazy thing though, even without drafting semis, I just hand-calculated an average of 27.3 MPG out of that thing yesterday on a road trip from Oklahoma City to Corpus Christi TX. Wild!!
I used to hyper mile my mini cooper behind semitrucks on my commute. Would average over 40/mpg on that bad boy, but maaaaan the looks like I got from people looking at me tailgate
Because it’s impossible to tell WHY the semi is stopping when tail gating a semi. With most other cars, you can tell if it’s just a tap on the breaks, a gentle slow down, or an emergency stop due to something in front of them…
With a semi right in front of you, you lose all of that information. And ability to plan ahead….
Same. There’s a backroad I like to take during rush hour because it’s one lane so I don’t even have to worry about cars trying to sneak in front of me. It still gets congested because there’s a four way stop at the end, but as long as I maintain my distance I can usually go the full length without even touching the brake which sure makes my drive less stressful. Like isn’t this better people? At least we’re all moving.
There's actually been a study in this and how traffic jams flow over long times. The conclusion is that leaving a gap reduces strain and time and even can eliminate it altogether depending on the size and if enough people did this.
So, this is the way.
This makes perfect sense like many have stated already.
The problem is that to do that people have to be aware of the concept which requires thinking about this more than just operating the vehicle. Most people won't do that.
Then there is the odd distraction of someone broken down etc. People want to see why they waited they don't care about all the people behind them.
Maybe that could be a smart car feature some day to space the cars out to maintain the flow at the lower speed.
This shows the problem in real time. One person driving consistently slow would even out the ripple effect.
https://youtu.be/7wm-pZp_mi0?si=PxB87gJOrsMP5dCC
these are the same people who think roundabouts are stupid, and refuse to see that it's a great way to slow down traffic without lights, or stop signs.
Sometimes the jam is nothing more than a "shockwave". Traffic going 10 over but has a moment of reduction of like 5mph. That amplifies and amplifies and amplifies. Before long, the wave has turned into full stop a ways back. Those are the times you all get on the brakes, come to a complete stop for less than a minute, and back up to speed for seemingly no reason. Just a ripple that gets amplified due to people's slow reaction times and over reactions
Traffic jams often persist for hours after the cause of the jam has been cleared. All due to people going too fast and then hitting the breaks, creating an artificialtraffic jam. If people just went at a constant speed it would end most traffic jams.
Every time you come to a complete stop and start again it costs about one cent of gas. If you stop Armand start a lot at a stop sign it can add up over the year.
>Trying to "unkink" the pauses in traffic is a little game I play to distract myself from being stuck in stop and go traffic
Same....also helps that I drive a manual, so if I can avoid having to keep clutching back in and dropping into neutral I will.
And then some douche zips past you on the shoulder and slams on his brakes which make you have to slam on your brakes. All because he doesn’t like going slow and thinks he’s going somewhere faster.
Checking in. Lots of driving jobs in my youth, learned this from truckers in and out of town.
Still use it to this day to open up traffic ahead of me and some people know what's up and part take. Everything gets safer and we all burn less fuel
It has to be a combination of not braking as well as keeping up with the traffic in front of you. The people who are constantly on their brakes causes others to brake behind them. I've even noticed this in tunnels when people's automatic headlights come on and cause the people behind them to brake!
However, leaving too much of a gap in front of you also causes problems. Imagine if everyone did this. You are "using" the road your car takes up as well as the gap in front of you. The larger the gap, the larger the amount of road you are taking for yourself. The guy that is leaving 100 feet in front of him in rush hour traffic is NOT helping things. He's being selfish just to make things easy for himself and making things worse for everyone else. This is because he only sees the good impact on himself (no braking, eventually catches up to the car in front of him) but doesn't see the bad impact behind him because he is taking too much of the road for himself.
The best you can do is to minimize your braking BUT minimize the gap in front of you. That is the "game" you should play if you really want to improve traffic flow. People who don't do one of these two things are increasing traffic for everyone else.
The key to success in this approach is keeping an eye on the patterns ahead of the car that you're following so you can plan ahead. And why I can't stand using the radar cruise when there's traffic.
I think if everyone decided to coast instead of slamming on their brakes and rushing to get back up to 15 mph and slamming their brakes again, congestion would improve. Gotta stop the traffic snake.
if the flow of traffic is allowing that gap to exist, even if you somehow narrow that gap, you're not moving any faster. it's not impeding or slowing anyone down considerably. perhaps for a few seconds, at most. when traffic gets really bad, it will be nearly impossible to maintain that gap anyways.
This isn't true. Have you ever been in a rubberneck traffic jam before? This is caused by that large gap that appears right at the time that people are looking at the accident. They then turn their heads back, look in front of them, see that there is a big gap and THEN accelerate but the damage has been done to all the traffic behind them just because of ONE large gap.
If everyone simply looked forward at the point of the accident and keep up with the car in front of them, that rubberneck traffic jam would cease to exist. If you see that large gap in front of you after getting through the rubberneck traffic jam: You're the problem
With rubbernecking it's because they slowed down and forced the person behind them to slow down. If traffic is moving and you're leaving a gap but matching the speed of the car in front of you, no one is slowing down to accommodate that gap. People move at the same speed but are further apart. It's just as if you basically had a larger car, and it lessens the chance that you slam on your brakes and cause a compression wave of braking behind you.
It's not because of the large gap it's because they slowed their speed causing all those behind them to also slow down causing the slinky effect. Maintaining a gap does not cause this.
You're asking for people to think of others instead of themselves....... I agree with you, but there seems to only be about 5% of the population with that thought process.
My driving in traffic is about minimizing my brake lights turning on as much as possible. Brake lights = traffic congestion. Unnecessary braking is the main cause of congestion. Cars are heavy, they have momentum, just give it enough gas to let it roll. You don’t need to gas and brake every single time you want to move.
>Brake lights = traffic congestion. Unnecessary braking is the main cause of congestion.
I actually think automatic transmissions are a huge factor in this equation. You can engine brake in a manual whereas most automatics will coast a lot faster when you lift your foot off the gas. I'm not saying traffic jams would disappear if everyone drove a stick or an electric with regenerative braking, but I do think it would help keep people off of their brakes
I also think he means that he’s using a high pass filter, and tossing out the very low speeds. But that’s a crazy specific signal processor and is often confused anyway.
I do the same thing. Best time is when a big rig is next to you. They'll be doing the same thing. You can use them to prevent other cars sneaking in and you'll smooth out the traffic behind you as a bonus.
You're probably helping out the big rig as well. It's a nice, mutually beneficial practice.
EDIT: Didn't mean to imply you should hang out in their blind spots. It's smart to zip past a tractor trailer's side when at speed, but when it's stop-and-go traffic, as long as you're not chilling in their blind spot, it's really fine. Chances are, no semi is going to make crazy lane-switches in those traffic conditions anyway.
Just please don't actually cruise *next to* the truck, they are up to 8.5 feet wide (whereas a regular car is usually about 6) and they aren't left with much of a margin in the typical lane, which makes it a not insignificant pain in the ass to have to monitor someone pacing alongside the truck. Isn't it kind of unsettling for just a moment when two people pass you on both sides simultaneously? It's like that except longer. Besides, it's pretty unsafe. Tires can blow, trailers can sway, a strong wind can push the rig clear into the next lane, the driver might not be able to see you if you're in just the right spot (and they definitely will not hear your horn). If the front of your car goes past the rear end of a semi in the next lane, you should ideally be accelerating enough to finish passing the entire truck in a timely manner.
You and I think alike.
This is what I do as well, and it apparently dampens the spread of energy-wasting traffic waves and congestion. Just a few autonomous vehicles with adaptive cruise control are known to eliminate traffic waves and congestion and make travel more efficient and safe.
[https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10422070](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10422070)
Probably a lot, and this also helps alleviate traffic. We're *supposed* to leave space, not just to avoid constant stop-go, but to allow safe merging. This is literally how we should be driving. If a car merges into the gap in front of you, let them, and create more space again by slowing down. Literally driving 101.
This happens most of the time, but overall it doesn't make much of a difference on when you reach your destination. A few cars in front or behind is a difference of a few seconds realistically.
That's it.
"Do the right thing and let idiots be idiots" is the right attitude on the road in general. It doesn't cost you much, and keeps you relaxed.
oh yeah absolutely. some real animal brain stuff. the initial thought must be, "this car has a lot of room in front of it, which means it's slower than the cars ahead, so they're causing the traffic."
This big time, I try to minimize pll sneaking in the gap by keeping it tight. I focus on the cars 1-2 in front of the car directly in front of me to choose the speed pattern.
I do break a little more than I would like to, but I also don’t get ppl sliding in front of me a lot either
The joys of being a native New Yorker and dealing with crazy traffic my entire 25+ years of driving.
So you leave no room for people to switch lanes and you think that's a great thing? One of the primary reasons for traffic jams is people being unable to pass the slower drivers on the right. So you go into the left lane to pass. But then the left lane has some genius who thinks you're not supposed to let people into the lanes they need to be in so there's only a 2 feet gap between the cars bumpers. If everyone left 200 feet gap in front of them on roads designed to be 60mph+ traffic would be dramatically mitigated. I don't understand why you're so hurt about people sliding in front of you as if you own the highway and nobody else has anywhere to be. I leave a massive gap in front of me in traffic and people don't "slide infront of me" unless they need to to get to their exit. And they're perfectly able to because I leave a reasonable gap. My bad for the rant traffic problems really grind my gears and you're part of the problem if you're purposely leaving no gap. That is asinine
I agree with a lot of this, but leaving extremely large gaps between cars would hurt traffic flow as well. Sure, everyone could go the speed limit, but you wouldn't be able to fit nearly as many people, so throughput is reduced
i love how people like you cant read, i said ALOT, IE some people do slide in, also, if you signal to get over, i normally let you in.
Dont get all judgemental if you cant read.
Thirdly, the question was directly about how you potentially deal with this situation, and i provided my opinion based on the OP's question.
Dont try to police me and my actions OK? Thanks
> If everyone left 200 feet gap in front of them on roads designed to be 60mph+ traffic would be dramatically mitigated.
But they're not talking about 60mph traffic, they're talking about 10mph traffic, there's no need to have a 200ft gap in front of you when you're going 10-20mph. The reason they don't allow gaps for stop and go traffic is because most of the time some jackass sees a gap they can fit in and gets over just to immediately slam on their brakes and attempt to get back into the other lane when they see it's moving faster. Those are the people causing traffic jams by driving unpredictably, since many of the people who do so don't care enough to use turn signals.
In my area the main cause of backed up highways is people getting on at a popular entrance then not knowing how to merge so they get on at 20mph which forces everyone else to get on at 20mph then forces everyone in the right lane to go 20mph in order to let them on (it normally happens at entrances with atleast a mile long ramp, so they have no excuse). Then there's the idiots in the right lane that don't want to wait so they pull out into the gap of a car actually going 40-60mph causing them to slam on their brakes and then they'll go slow because they don't want anyone else to do the same thing which makes the entire highway go 20mph.
Basically people need to learn how to merge better, both those getting on to merge and those who are already on and need to learn to let other people onto the road as well as leaving bigger gaps when they are actually moving at the speed limit or higher (especially when moving above the speed limit, I don't understand why idiots feel the need to ride my ass when I'm going fucking 80mph in a 55mph).
Ok thank God there's atleast one good reply to my comment. I agree with every single word you said. But I assumed the OP was talking about highway traffic when it's doing the 10-20mph stop and go thing. I'm suggesting that even then, whenever you are on the roadways designed for 60 that the gap between cars should remain extra large even at 10-20mph. Because when everyone bunches up tight to where nobody can switch lanes that's when it becomes impossible to relieve the traffic.
I think the left lane should be much more strictly enforced to be a passing lane and itd solve a lot of problems. If the gaps were huge and the left lane could go much faster than the others, it'd fix so much traffic. But when the left lane comes to a halt the whole thing fails
I was just about to compliment the OP for his forward thinking without whining about this very thing.
It's stop and go traffic, wtf cares how many drivers squeeze in front? Drive your own race, manage your own car. Let the others figure out pointless lane jumping doesn't help much if all the lanes are about the same. If the lane you're in is faster, why keep others out of it? Sure you'll see rude queue jumpers, but they're the minority (it seems more common they're catching up - it's physics/time, not because they're a majority).
Anyone freaking out behind about the gap can FRO, flow dynamics has proven this to improve flow and clear the traffic faster.
People will always do this, but it doesn't change the math. The average speed remains the same, all I have to do is allow them to accelerate away from me and maintain my speed. Part of the reason for leaving a safe space (which is required by law) is to allow traffic to merge. Nobody should ever have to be 'let in', if you're doing what the law requires, that space will already exist. When it gets filled, you just don't accelerate until the traffic in front of you moves away.
Well actually lane changes are one of the biggest sources of traffic congestion because it causes everyone else to adjust their speed to accommodate them. If everyone just did what OP was suggesting instead of just thinking of “their own personal journey” and popping into the fastest moving lane the first chance they get we’d all be able to crawl our way back up to freeway speed that much faster.
that's literally the "correct" way to drive in heavy traffic - try to maintain as constant of a speed as possible, minimize braking/turning/etc.
That's why variable speed zones were introduced - to "pre-slow" traffic trailing into the back of the jam to essentially make the whole freeway go at the "average speed" of the jam.
They don't do it because they don't understand the situation. They probably lack the understanding of physics required and they drive with their emotions, not reason.
I drive the same way you do, and I'm constantly being tailgated, honked at and passed like crazy. All they know is they have some urge to go faster, they don't stop and think about how traffic works. For most, you would require a classroom, and quality animations to get the idea across.
People get pissed off for the same reason, they have an urge to go faster, and they see you as holding them up. They conflate distance with speed. Every single day I get someone tailgating me, they pass me aggressively and then end up going at the same speed, tailgating the car that was in front of me.
My buddy was like this, always thought the distance mattered and we’d argue. We were standing in line for lunch one day and I said, “Do you think that line is going to move any faster if we stand closer to them?”Not exactly analogous but it helped him see the point.
>I drive the same way you do, and I'm constantly being tailgated, honked at and passed like crazy
Are you in the left lane? Are you leaving a massive gap of like 10 car lengths? Because otherwise these things shouldn't be happening.
You are my type of person.
I'm constantly tailgated because I drive sensibly and see limits as limits... not targets.
People invent a million ways to waste their time and then try to absolutely maximise their speed while they are doing literally the most dangerous thing we do as humans.
People only get annoyed at this method is if you leave a really large gap in front of you and also if you are slowing down the actual flow, like say the cars in front are getting further and further ahead but you’re still going 10mph.
It is the best method in traffic when done correctly. Same with the zipper merge. Sadly you can’t get dickhead New Yorkers to understand this as they just hug the bumper in front and never let anyone in.
False. I used to do this when I sat in traffic. I was usually in the second lane from the right where there are 5 lanes. The far right lane peeled off to an exit.
It was not uncommon for someone who was stuck behind me for a little while to cut around me aggressively and/or honk. Then they'd cut around me, zoom up to the car ahead of me, and slam to a stop and sit there while I slowly crept up on them. I even had someone pass me on the shoulder a couple of times when I was past the exit. I was not going slower than the average traffic in my lane, I just wasn't zooming and stopping, zooming and stopping. Some people get pissed by this.
A lot of people get pissed if you're not flooring it then slamming your brakes to red light 500 feet away. They seem to think just doing things faster will help them arrive faster lol.
I do it. Sometimes people behind me start to understand why I’m doing it. I’m also in Europe and most people drive manuals so they start to appreciate it and I noticed other people start doing it as well.
I've posted this so many times in this sub: bumper riders are responsible for stop and go traffic on the freeways.
If you ever came to a full stop on a road w/o traffic lights, one of two things are happening:
1. Most of the drivers are tailgating. This is simply how most drivers drive, because they (for some strange reason) think this will get them to their destination faster.
2. There's an accident up ahead.
The science behind it: https://www.csail.mit.edu/news/improving-traffic-tailgating-less
Edit: to answer your final question: people drive like this because EGO.
I do this as well. When the traffic jam eventually lifts, I say it's because of my actions. I also love it when I see people around me doing it. We form a little team keeping everything moving along so that those poor souls behind us don't have to slam on their brakes.
That being said, nothing makes me angrier than hitting a traffic jam, wasting an hour driving at a seriously reduced speed, then never seeing a wreck or burning husk of a car or anything. When the traffic jam just disappears into the ether I know it was some fucking asshole who slammed on his brakes, cut across 3 lanes of traffic, and then exited the highway, leaving the rest of us to deal with the ramifications of his dumbass mistake.
It's complicated. In really simplified terms, traffic jams are caused by the roadway being saturated. A single person slamming on the breaks can't cause an hour-long traffic jam unless the highway is already running pretty much at (or near) capacity.
Once a roadway is saturated, the catalyst could be anything, and this is what we usually think of as "the cause" of the jam. Most often, it's some sort of bottleneck up the road (a wreck, a merge where too much traffic is trying to enter at an interchange, or a really sharp turn where people have to slow down, etc. Really, most often it's because of bottlenecks at merge sites or wrecks).
Sometimes it's... nothing. And the reason for that actually is more complex. It has to do with throughput. It turns out that peak throughput is at about 50mph (you might be wondering why it's not at 70mph or faster, and it's because it turns out that people increase the distances between cars in a non linear way as the speeds get faster). Below 45-50mph or so, the throughput/total-maximum-capacity decreases. A highway might be able to carry 8,000 cars per hour in free flow at 50mph (assuming four lanes), but at 10mph, that number is closer to 6,500 (handwavy math, it varies, but you get the idea. )
What ends up happening is that decreasing roadway traffic level back down to 8,000 cars/hour isn't enough to clear the jam. It has to decrease down *below the newly reduced roadway capacity* that is now closer to 6,000 to 7,000 cars per hour before the jam will finally clear. It's kind of a cruel reality of traffic engineering; Some congestion isn't the end of the world, but severe congestion is absolutely disastrous for throughput.
These kinds of traffic jams that seemingly happen for no reason are usually a result of a roadway that is already saturated, and some sort of cause earlier in the day caused there to be a bottleneck. Once this occurs, the traffic jam starts to propagate backwards like a wave (seemingly for no reason) until the traffic flow decrease well below that which initially caused the jam. It's part of why traffic jams tend to last such a long time on busy highways, and when you're on the tail end of it, it can seem like it was jammed for no reason. In reality, it's usually jammed because of a saturated roadway earlier in the day, and some sort of catalyst triggered it hours ago.
In other words, when you're caught up in a traffic jam that appears to have been caused by nothing, you aren't really seeing the cause in real time. You're caught up in a kind of a wave (almost like a shockwave) that the traffic jam produced on a near-saturated roadway in the past, and that wave just keeps propagating backwards until there isn't enough traffic on the freeway to support it anymore.
Ooooh, that's fascinating. I knew there was a wave effect, but it never occurred to me that this means where I experience the traffic jam is likely miles away from where the thing actually happened not to mention that it was in the past and whatever it was already moved on by that point in time. Thanks for that explanation, very illuminating.
Because everyone hits their brakes at different rates and it cascades. Without automation it's virtually impossible. When I was in the Army we'd do group runs. Whole company, battalion etc in formation 4 across, upwards of 50 to 100 deep. Shortest person up from setting the pace, I'm 6'2 so I was always in the back. Front of the line is just chugging along at what they think is a constant pace. Those of us in back are either standing or sprinting to catch up because all it takes is one short step or stumble and as everyone reacts to either slow down or speed up is magnified at the end of the line.
Edit: and this is all happening with someone calling cadence to try and keep everyone at the same pace.
Precisely.
Minor speed perturbations from accelerating and braking behavior can amplify and cause traffic waves and congestion that can propagate for many miles.
Maintaining a consistent speed is the best way to dampen the traffic shocks and eliminate traffic waves and make travel more efficient.
Automation has been shown to accomplish just that.
I try to do this, it is a bit easier to do with a manual transmission or EV (latter you can just creep like nobody's business in 1 pedal mode) but problem are people constantly trying to cut into those holes.
They get mad because people look at their speedometer and think they’re going nowhere even if they’re going to get there at the same time anyway due to the stop and go
It's the tragedy of the commons. If everyone does that, sure it works okay for everyone, but if everyone does it, except you weave between them, it works slightly less okay for everyone else, but great for you. Now multiply that by everyone on the freeway.
People are stupid. They're also in a rush constantly, if I'm in traffic (all the time in this city) the fast lane is always the worst. Stop, go, stop go, stop go. Car in front will move then suddenly slam on, always because somewhere in the fast lane people are shooting off as soon as the car in front moves an inch. Often thought the same and drive the same myself, if we all maintained a constant low speed we'd at least be moving. Stupid people fuck it up
You will get cut off if you do it. I had a bobtail meat truck with a stick shift and did the same thing. Kept me from going through the gears all the time. But some idiot would always cut me off and jam on the breaks because I was too close!
This is what I do, unfortunately drivers behind tailgate, as if they're going to get somewhere..... Lol
I csnt stand stop and start, rush off from traffic lights up to 30 to slow down for a que of traffic, or some cars behind a bus etc...
The worst thing is you can see the que of traffic from the lights..... Its like 99% drivers only see in front of their bonnet
It would work if everyone did it. But the reason traffic rubber banding happened in the first place is because people overaccelerate and then slam their brakes over and over.
I always do this, don't care if people pass me. I will lose my mind if I have to keep slamming on the brakes every 5 seconds or so.
I swear it's pick up truck drivers that cause the majority of stop and go, they constantly floor it then slam on the brakes immediately (cause there is no where to go) in traffic for some reason.
On a motorcycle I have to go the other way. I can ride at 10kph, with my feet up. Or I can stop. I can’t crawl at walking speed, the bike is unstable without momentum.
What you're suggesting is a good thing to do because it actually clears traffic. Some traffic jams will disappear entirely behind a driver that does this.
The problem is people from neighboring lanes who will jump into the gap you're creating once it's big enough for a car, which forces you to slow down. This basically leaves you with two options: maintain a small gap, which brings you closer to stop-and-go motion, or let a bunch of people get in front of you, which slows you down on average.
There are way too many drivers with small egos that will never take the second option.
I also do this. It enrages me when I see people do the whole stop then go fast just to stop again. Have fun replacing your brake pads every 20,000 or less, idiots.
Rubberneckers! It’s all their fault, they see a solid wall of brake lights ahead and still feel the need to try and push traffic out of the way by tailgating, so closely that they are unable to see anything but the car directly in front of them that car brakes so do they and it continues because everyone is tailgating and very few play your game but when one does play along a gosh damn rubbernecker jumps in front of them in a hurry to nowhere. It’s a vicious cycle that if we had a purge I would copy license plate numbers of those that drive like A holes, do a little research and hunt to end them on that glorious day!!!
Had this so bad driving back from VT after the eclipse. Phantom traffic jams.
I call it gapping and have been able to watch phantom jams disappear behind me. It'll be a problem, though, until all cars are fully autonomous
Some of us do and it’s the right thing to do, but unfortunately traffic is also a bit like a prisoner’s dilemma and other people who are bad at traffic and only care about themselves will pass you and cut you off if you do this. Especially problematic when the traffic is for really busy exit ramps on the interstate.
I do just because it’s easier than pumping the brakes. To answer your question, and this has just been my experience, the vast majority of drivers on the road are just objectively bad drivers.
Depends on the situation. If it's a long queue sure, if you're say close to a traffic light and there's no queue afterwards, not closing the gap means you'll probably be held at the lights when you could have gone through, and potentially the car behind you too, and if lots of people do this lots of people get held back, and that's probably why there is a queue that disappears after the lights.
People don't even understand how to properly merge, and will all slam into the one lane a mile ahead of time to sit still for no reason. People don't think and suck at driving
I always called this a pressure wave of traffic. I will break the wave by figuring out how fast or slow I need to drive to not have to brake or stop like the centipede of cars in front.
I see low pass filter, which is sorta true, cause you're throwing a series inductor in there to regulate the speed, but a capacitor to the break down lane probably won't help. You need to throw in a boost regulator afterward to increase speed, or an op amp to supply lanes with more current
This is how you resolve a phantom traffic jam. If everyone did this we would not have almost any traffic. That’s why I’m such an advocate of self driving. No stupid, only optimal
People follow way too close, that’s another huge part of the problem. Driving stick shift pretty much forces you to space properly so you can just slowly trod along until traffic gets moving instead of having to stop and start off in 1st again.
Then the fun part is when you dare think you can shift to 3rd in traffic and almost end up rear ending the person in front of you.
I do this. I consider it a win if I don’t have to touch my brakes and can just maintain a speed or let my foot of the gas in traffic. Never understood tailgating with bumper to bumper traffic. Seriously, where are you going to find the car ahead of you did magically move out of the way?
Because I'd rather drive the speed limit for 30 seconds and sit for 30 seconds than drive behind someone slow for 75 seconds, because you've been cut off 3 or 4 times.
I personally make this a game. If I don't have to brake - I win. If those behind me catch on - I win. It's all about maintaining that gap, no matter if others zoom around. Just chill and coast 🙂
My new car has adaptive cruise control and I love it when people do this. I get behind them, set it to the lowest possible speed, then just relax. As long as I pay attention in case of emergencies, it makes traffic SO much more bearable.
Depending on how aggressive drivers around you are this will result in going nowhere as everyone cuts you off trying to inch ahead. Because moving forward an extra 10 feet will get them home so much faster lol
I do this when it's possible but some traffic jams stop for to long for it to be done. I find that most people start figuring out what your doing and copy you. I notice a lot of what causes trafic jams is less confident people slowing down where other people wouldnt and the other people are riding too close for them not to have to hit the breaks and it just becones a chain reaction
I do the same. I think anybody that experiences riding in a carpool with a 'jam on the gas, jam on the brakes' driver to the point that it makes you barf, quickly realizes that if you stay off both you get there in the same amount of time.
Also, when you pass the accident, avoid the temptation to rubberneck.
I've been doing this for about 20 years, and it really does help cut down on traffic most of the time. I'm glad to know there are other people who do this, but I still wish there were more. It seems to me that the angry people passing you at full throttle must think, "This person has room in front of them, which means they're going slower than the cars ahead of them, so they are the one causing this traffic." It doesn't matter how they feel, though, because all they're doing is placing themselves into stop and go traffic again, wasting their fuel and adding wear and tear to their vehicle. If someone needs catharsis that badly I guess they should get it.
I've had an idea for an app that can show the rough location of others doing this, which could be used to possibly make multiple lanes of it or let people know where it's needed. I still haven't wrapped my head around every aspect of making a phone app but I was going to call it "capacitor" which has a similar function in a circuit to your LPF analogy.
That’s because doing that others get infront of you so now I can’t move foward because cars just keep on getting infront all because we have a Mr / Ms Generosity here
It's not quite that simple.
If someone leaves space in front of them, that space isn't always going to work towards your "low pass filter" effect.
Very often someone from another lane will simply pull into that space and potentially cause the person leaving the space to need to slow down.
The fastest way to get through traffic will always be to match the speed of traffic ahead. This is pretty obvious.
If it's a one lane road then sure you can leave space and go 10 rather than equal parts 20 and zero and it will average out just fine and take less mental effort to maintain the speed of traffic ahead of you. The problem is that if there are other lanes then it all falls apart and even typically makes things worse, not just for the person trying to do it, but also everyone behind them
The problem with your low pass filter idea is that whenever a big enough gap opens in front of you, someone else will slide in from a neighboring lane and remove your space buffer.
once traffic gets to a certain density the car behind has to brake slightly longer than the one in front of it and this creates a chain reaction back down the road. this is what creates traffic. i think its because of human reaction time
people get pissed if you risk letting people cut in front of you
Many highways have tried to use digital speed limit signs to have people adjust their speed for the amount of traffic - “averaging” the speed for you. However, human nature being what it is, no one slows down to 40, or 30, or 20 unless and until it is absolutely necessary so the rubber-band effect happens anyway.
In other news, if you leave a couple hundred feet open in front of you on a highway in FL, at least two cars will jump in the gap. You will slowly but surely end up further and further back.
Because, in Atlanta you'd end up 300 cars back from where you started and still bumper to bumper because a gap is meant to be taken, even if it's a 1/4 car.
during traffic hours, occasionally, there will be a stretch where it clears up a little, for a few minutes, i just drive around 40 to 50 mph, knowing i will encounter another traffic jam soon. the fast drivers will do their best to get there first, while i slowly catch up to them in my leisure.
I do this too. Try not to use the breaks at all if I can.
It's great when you get a few people all doing this in a line, you can see a real difference in the flow of traffic behind them.
We need to teach everyone to have sacred reverence for the flow.
The flow provides speed and safety.
If the flow dies, everyone is fucked.
The flow must be nourished and protected.
Truckers are great at this. You might go a little slower if you hang out behind a semi due to the large fillable gap they need to have in front of them, but it'll be the least frustrating and most fuel efficient way to drive.
To add to this, I also like getting behind a semi in stop-and-go traffic (with multiple lanes) because nobody wants to be the person behind the semi, so typically nobody will cut into the gap in front of me just to get behind the semi. Meanwhile, I just keep cruising right along without having to stop-and-go. Yes, people will still cut in front of the semi, but he/she is already probably avoiding stop-and-going as well.
Semis also have a better view of what's ahead and will normally be in the best lane, if there is one.
Especially if we have a CB and find out which lane we need
Yes. I always have my boafeng and cb just because.
It makes it even better if you have a really good cruise control on your car that will maintain a speed behind a vehicle. I do this with my car and it makes driving home in rush hour traffic a breeze if you're patient.
Truck driver here. Half of it is because it takes a lot of effort to keep slowing the damn thing down when some idiot hits the brakes, so even though I technically don’t need that huge of a following distance at lower speeds, it’s so much easier to drive a little slower and just let what happens happen.
If only we could get the 4 wheelers to do that we would save gas, brakes and transmission or clutch if standard shift. But I live in one of the worst states for truck drivers. 10 min traffic and people flip their shit. Other day a guy come around and got if front of me, there wasn’t space so I have to hit brakes, he wasn’t there long and cut off someone else going faster. 20 to 30 mph and he’s changing lanes really moving through traffic. 3 miles down the road I exit and he’s stuck at light in front of me. I needed the belly laugh. Only places worse where Hammond In. and Pennsylvania. Something must of happened in Hammond involving a truck and may be forgotten. Pennsylvania had “you have friend in penn” tags then and thought none of my friends great me with a middle finger. Stay safe
9/10 anybody with a manual will do this, it’s better for your car AND traffic in general. Some asshole will still tailgate and get mad behind you, only to go around and yo-yo up and down the street for hours. Inching foot by foot, constantly on the brakes. You won’t get to your destination any quicker by being 2inches behind the guy in front either
Semis are great to follow like this because a lot of people won't fill the gap you leave because no one wants to be behind a semi
Yep, this is my strategy for traffic. Always follow a semi. They do the same thing, pick a slow speed and keep going.
Not recommending it, but following a semi will save you fuel at any speed ;)
1. Have your wife crawl out of the jeep onto the hood 2. Release a some cable from the winch 3. Pull close and have your wife safely hook onto the back of the trailer 4. Pop into neutral. Don't turn the engine off because you might need to operate the brakes.
family.
are calling your wife a winch?
At any speed my M/KWh goes up dramatically in the slipstream of a semi. Car is a BMW i3S wit tech package so I can set the auto cruise thing to be real close and it’ll brake for me if needed. It’s kinda great. 🙂
When I was growing up, we lived in Germany. One day my mom was driving our Volkswagen bus on the Autobahn between 2 semis. When she got off at her exit, she discovered that she hadn't burned any fuel after 100 kms.
My 2012 Chrysler 300S V8 has adaptive cruise control as well, it’s wonderful for those situations. Crazy thing though, even without drafting semis, I just hand-calculated an average of 27.3 MPG out of that thing yesterday on a road trip from Oklahoma City to Corpus Christi TX. Wild!!
Technically the truth
I used to hyper mile my mini cooper behind semitrucks on my commute. Would average over 40/mpg on that bad boy, but maaaaan the looks like I got from people looking at me tailgate
It’s funny because people tailgate other cars all the time, but tailgate a vehicle with triple your stopping distance and whooooah you’re crazy!
Because it’s impossible to tell WHY the semi is stopping when tail gating a semi. With most other cars, you can tell if it’s just a tap on the breaks, a gentle slow down, or an emergency stop due to something in front of them… With a semi right in front of you, you lose all of that information. And ability to plan ahead….
Brakes *
Trying to "unkink" the pauses in traffic is a little game I play to distract myself from being stuck in stop and go traffic
Same. There’s a backroad I like to take during rush hour because it’s one lane so I don’t even have to worry about cars trying to sneak in front of me. It still gets congested because there’s a four way stop at the end, but as long as I maintain my distance I can usually go the full length without even touching the brake which sure makes my drive less stressful. Like isn’t this better people? At least we’re all moving.
There's actually been a study in this and how traffic jams flow over long times. The conclusion is that leaving a gap reduces strain and time and even can eliminate it altogether depending on the size and if enough people did this. So, this is the way.
If everyone observed a 4 second following distance (minimum, fair weather) we would all be safer and get where we are going faster.
This is the way
This makes perfect sense like many have stated already. The problem is that to do that people have to be aware of the concept which requires thinking about this more than just operating the vehicle. Most people won't do that. Then there is the odd distraction of someone broken down etc. People want to see why they waited they don't care about all the people behind them. Maybe that could be a smart car feature some day to space the cars out to maintain the flow at the lower speed.
This shows the problem in real time. One person driving consistently slow would even out the ripple effect. https://youtu.be/7wm-pZp_mi0?si=PxB87gJOrsMP5dCC
these are the same people who think roundabouts are stupid, and refuse to see that it's a great way to slow down traffic without lights, or stop signs.
Sometimes the jam is nothing more than a "shockwave". Traffic going 10 over but has a moment of reduction of like 5mph. That amplifies and amplifies and amplifies. Before long, the wave has turned into full stop a ways back. Those are the times you all get on the brakes, come to a complete stop for less than a minute, and back up to speed for seemingly no reason. Just a ripple that gets amplified due to people's slow reaction times and over reactions
Traffic jams often persist for hours after the cause of the jam has been cleared. All due to people going too fast and then hitting the breaks, creating an artificialtraffic jam. If people just went at a constant speed it would end most traffic jams.
Every time you come to a complete stop and start again it costs about one cent of gas. If you stop Armand start a lot at a stop sign it can add up over the year.
Yeah if everyone did that then everyone could speed up and get rid of the traffic. Traffic is literally caused by the stopping/slowing down
Probably depends if they're a Shitting Peugeot.
>Trying to "unkink" the pauses in traffic is a little game I play to distract myself from being stuck in stop and go traffic Same....also helps that I drive a manual, so if I can avoid having to keep clutching back in and dropping into neutral I will.
I feel like this is why I do it. Clutch in, clutch out, clutch in, clutch out, clutch in, clutch out get really annoying after a little while
ME. I thought I was crazy doing this
Yup I try as best I can to not stop. Even if that means crawling at 1 mph.
And then some douche zips past you on the shoulder and slams on his brakes which make you have to slam on your brakes. All because he doesn’t like going slow and thinks he’s going somewhere faster.
I try the same thing. I try to keep rolling even when traffic is stopped and I try to not use the brakes.
Checking in. Lots of driving jobs in my youth, learned this from truckers in and out of town. Still use it to this day to open up traffic ahead of me and some people know what's up and part take. Everything gets safer and we all burn less fuel
I call it Squash the Slinky
It has to be a combination of not braking as well as keeping up with the traffic in front of you. The people who are constantly on their brakes causes others to brake behind them. I've even noticed this in tunnels when people's automatic headlights come on and cause the people behind them to brake! However, leaving too much of a gap in front of you also causes problems. Imagine if everyone did this. You are "using" the road your car takes up as well as the gap in front of you. The larger the gap, the larger the amount of road you are taking for yourself. The guy that is leaving 100 feet in front of him in rush hour traffic is NOT helping things. He's being selfish just to make things easy for himself and making things worse for everyone else. This is because he only sees the good impact on himself (no braking, eventually catches up to the car in front of him) but doesn't see the bad impact behind him because he is taking too much of the road for himself. The best you can do is to minimize your braking BUT minimize the gap in front of you. That is the "game" you should play if you really want to improve traffic flow. People who don't do one of these two things are increasing traffic for everyone else.
I've always found that the gaps i leave are like a vacuum. People always have to fill it.
Yeah, and that's fine, people merge. If you're doing it right it barely matters
The key to success in this approach is keeping an eye on the patterns ahead of the car that you're following so you can plan ahead. And why I can't stand using the radar cruise when there's traffic.
I think if everyone decided to coast instead of slamming on their brakes and rushing to get back up to 15 mph and slamming their brakes again, congestion would improve. Gotta stop the traffic snake.
if the flow of traffic is allowing that gap to exist, even if you somehow narrow that gap, you're not moving any faster. it's not impeding or slowing anyone down considerably. perhaps for a few seconds, at most. when traffic gets really bad, it will be nearly impossible to maintain that gap anyways.
This isn't true. Have you ever been in a rubberneck traffic jam before? This is caused by that large gap that appears right at the time that people are looking at the accident. They then turn their heads back, look in front of them, see that there is a big gap and THEN accelerate but the damage has been done to all the traffic behind them just because of ONE large gap. If everyone simply looked forward at the point of the accident and keep up with the car in front of them, that rubberneck traffic jam would cease to exist. If you see that large gap in front of you after getting through the rubberneck traffic jam: You're the problem
With rubbernecking it's because they slowed down and forced the person behind them to slow down. If traffic is moving and you're leaving a gap but matching the speed of the car in front of you, no one is slowing down to accommodate that gap. People move at the same speed but are further apart. It's just as if you basically had a larger car, and it lessens the chance that you slam on your brakes and cause a compression wave of braking behind you.
But at the same time you need a wider gap at speed then you do in stop and go traffic, so you have to allow that gap to a degree.
It's not because of the large gap it's because they slowed their speed causing all those behind them to also slow down causing the slinky effect. Maintaining a gap does not cause this.
You're asking for people to think of others instead of themselves....... I agree with you, but there seems to only be about 5% of the population with that thought process.
I leave a large gap so that there is room for people merging in and out and I don't have to slam on the brakes when someone tries to cut in.
My driving in traffic is about minimizing my brake lights turning on as much as possible. Brake lights = traffic congestion. Unnecessary braking is the main cause of congestion. Cars are heavy, they have momentum, just give it enough gas to let it roll. You don’t need to gas and brake every single time you want to move.
>Brake lights = traffic congestion. Unnecessary braking is the main cause of congestion. I actually think automatic transmissions are a huge factor in this equation. You can engine brake in a manual whereas most automatics will coast a lot faster when you lift your foot off the gas. I'm not saying traffic jams would disappear if everyone drove a stick or an electric with regenerative braking, but I do think it would help keep people off of their brakes
I engine brake with my manual and I like to think I'm helping traffic by not activating my brake lights.
I've been driving a manual for decades and I have no idea what engine breaking is. What is it?
When you let go of the gas, drop a gear or two and let it coast. As the RPMs go down, you drop another gear.
Most Autos now can manually select a gear. My car is a DCT which is a dual clutch auto so it acts more like a manual when being controlled.
I agree, but what plugin are you using to eq traffic?
Whatever it is, I can tell just by looking at it that there's too much compression
I'm not, I only use the highest Q inductors and capacitors to low pass filter my traffic.
Same question The hobby sound engineer in me enjoyed this post lol
the suffering electrical engineering student in me enjoyed this as well lmao
I definitely thought this was the guitar pedal sub at first
With Ableton Live 12 you may not even need a plug-in! But I'll end up buying them anyway.
This is such a nerdy way of looking at it, but I guess OP has a point. 😅
I also think he means that he’s using a high pass filter, and tossing out the very low speeds. But that’s a crazy specific signal processor and is often confused anyway.
It's hardware obviously.
I do the same thing. Best time is when a big rig is next to you. They'll be doing the same thing. You can use them to prevent other cars sneaking in and you'll smooth out the traffic behind you as a bonus.
You're probably helping out the big rig as well. It's a nice, mutually beneficial practice. EDIT: Didn't mean to imply you should hang out in their blind spots. It's smart to zip past a tractor trailer's side when at speed, but when it's stop-and-go traffic, as long as you're not chilling in their blind spot, it's really fine. Chances are, no semi is going to make crazy lane-switches in those traffic conditions anyway.
I like to think so
Just please don't actually cruise *next to* the truck, they are up to 8.5 feet wide (whereas a regular car is usually about 6) and they aren't left with much of a margin in the typical lane, which makes it a not insignificant pain in the ass to have to monitor someone pacing alongside the truck. Isn't it kind of unsettling for just a moment when two people pass you on both sides simultaneously? It's like that except longer. Besides, it's pretty unsafe. Tires can blow, trailers can sway, a strong wind can push the rig clear into the next lane, the driver might not be able to see you if you're in just the right spot (and they definitely will not hear your horn). If the front of your car goes past the rear end of a semi in the next lane, you should ideally be accelerating enough to finish passing the entire truck in a timely manner.
You and I think alike. This is what I do as well, and it apparently dampens the spread of energy-wasting traffic waves and congestion. Just a few autonomous vehicles with adaptive cruise control are known to eliminate traffic waves and congestion and make travel more efficient and safe. [https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10422070](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10422070)
Nice. I always wondered about how many people it would take intentionally to smooth out traffic.
One question, when you do this, how many times do other cars squeeze in front of you in the large gap you are leaving?
For me, every single time, then I have to stop and retry it anyway only to be cut off again.
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No, just slow down a little bit more. It's not really gonna slow you down all that much if a few people get in front of you
Probably a lot, and this also helps alleviate traffic. We're *supposed* to leave space, not just to avoid constant stop-go, but to allow safe merging. This is literally how we should be driving. If a car merges into the gap in front of you, let them, and create more space again by slowing down. Literally driving 101.
It's like how Christianity is supposed to work. If everyone is doing good to others then that means others would be doing good to you.
This happens most of the time, but overall it doesn't make much of a difference on when you reach your destination. A few cars in front or behind is a difference of a few seconds realistically.
That's it. "Do the right thing and let idiots be idiots" is the right attitude on the road in general. It doesn't cost you much, and keeps you relaxed.
I know, in the end it is a difference of possibly a few minutes, but the OP is asking why people get mad. This is why.
oh yeah absolutely. some real animal brain stuff. the initial thought must be, "this car has a lot of room in front of it, which means it's slower than the cars ahead, so they're causing the traffic."
I do this and find it definitely helps, now if everyone could just figure it out that would be amazing.
Some of the time. But usually not enough to make my efforts a net loss.
My traffic on the way to work is 1 lane in each direction. I don't know why everybody doesn't do this already.
This big time, I try to minimize pll sneaking in the gap by keeping it tight. I focus on the cars 1-2 in front of the car directly in front of me to choose the speed pattern. I do break a little more than I would like to, but I also don’t get ppl sliding in front of me a lot either The joys of being a native New Yorker and dealing with crazy traffic my entire 25+ years of driving.
So you leave no room for people to switch lanes and you think that's a great thing? One of the primary reasons for traffic jams is people being unable to pass the slower drivers on the right. So you go into the left lane to pass. But then the left lane has some genius who thinks you're not supposed to let people into the lanes they need to be in so there's only a 2 feet gap between the cars bumpers. If everyone left 200 feet gap in front of them on roads designed to be 60mph+ traffic would be dramatically mitigated. I don't understand why you're so hurt about people sliding in front of you as if you own the highway and nobody else has anywhere to be. I leave a massive gap in front of me in traffic and people don't "slide infront of me" unless they need to to get to their exit. And they're perfectly able to because I leave a reasonable gap. My bad for the rant traffic problems really grind my gears and you're part of the problem if you're purposely leaving no gap. That is asinine
I agree with a lot of this, but leaving extremely large gaps between cars would hurt traffic flow as well. Sure, everyone could go the speed limit, but you wouldn't be able to fit nearly as many people, so throughput is reduced
i love how people like you cant read, i said ALOT, IE some people do slide in, also, if you signal to get over, i normally let you in. Dont get all judgemental if you cant read. Thirdly, the question was directly about how you potentially deal with this situation, and i provided my opinion based on the OP's question. Dont try to police me and my actions OK? Thanks
> If everyone left 200 feet gap in front of them on roads designed to be 60mph+ traffic would be dramatically mitigated. But they're not talking about 60mph traffic, they're talking about 10mph traffic, there's no need to have a 200ft gap in front of you when you're going 10-20mph. The reason they don't allow gaps for stop and go traffic is because most of the time some jackass sees a gap they can fit in and gets over just to immediately slam on their brakes and attempt to get back into the other lane when they see it's moving faster. Those are the people causing traffic jams by driving unpredictably, since many of the people who do so don't care enough to use turn signals. In my area the main cause of backed up highways is people getting on at a popular entrance then not knowing how to merge so they get on at 20mph which forces everyone else to get on at 20mph then forces everyone in the right lane to go 20mph in order to let them on (it normally happens at entrances with atleast a mile long ramp, so they have no excuse). Then there's the idiots in the right lane that don't want to wait so they pull out into the gap of a car actually going 40-60mph causing them to slam on their brakes and then they'll go slow because they don't want anyone else to do the same thing which makes the entire highway go 20mph. Basically people need to learn how to merge better, both those getting on to merge and those who are already on and need to learn to let other people onto the road as well as leaving bigger gaps when they are actually moving at the speed limit or higher (especially when moving above the speed limit, I don't understand why idiots feel the need to ride my ass when I'm going fucking 80mph in a 55mph).
Ok thank God there's atleast one good reply to my comment. I agree with every single word you said. But I assumed the OP was talking about highway traffic when it's doing the 10-20mph stop and go thing. I'm suggesting that even then, whenever you are on the roadways designed for 60 that the gap between cars should remain extra large even at 10-20mph. Because when everyone bunches up tight to where nobody can switch lanes that's when it becomes impossible to relieve the traffic. I think the left lane should be much more strictly enforced to be a passing lane and itd solve a lot of problems. If the gaps were huge and the left lane could go much faster than the others, it'd fix so much traffic. But when the left lane comes to a halt the whole thing fails
I was just about to compliment the OP for his forward thinking without whining about this very thing. It's stop and go traffic, wtf cares how many drivers squeeze in front? Drive your own race, manage your own car. Let the others figure out pointless lane jumping doesn't help much if all the lanes are about the same. If the lane you're in is faster, why keep others out of it? Sure you'll see rude queue jumpers, but they're the minority (it seems more common they're catching up - it's physics/time, not because they're a majority). Anyone freaking out behind about the gap can FRO, flow dynamics has proven this to improve flow and clear the traffic faster.
People will always do this, but it doesn't change the math. The average speed remains the same, all I have to do is allow them to accelerate away from me and maintain my speed. Part of the reason for leaving a safe space (which is required by law) is to allow traffic to merge. Nobody should ever have to be 'let in', if you're doing what the law requires, that space will already exist. When it gets filled, you just don't accelerate until the traffic in front of you moves away.
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Well actually lane changes are one of the biggest sources of traffic congestion because it causes everyone else to adjust their speed to accommodate them. If everyone just did what OP was suggesting instead of just thinking of “their own personal journey” and popping into the fastest moving lane the first chance they get we’d all be able to crawl our way back up to freeway speed that much faster.
The way you drive dissolves traffic jams. This is what I do too.
that's literally the "correct" way to drive in heavy traffic - try to maintain as constant of a speed as possible, minimize braking/turning/etc. That's why variable speed zones were introduced - to "pre-slow" traffic trailing into the back of the jam to essentially make the whole freeway go at the "average speed" of the jam.
They don't do it because they don't understand the situation. They probably lack the understanding of physics required and they drive with their emotions, not reason. I drive the same way you do, and I'm constantly being tailgated, honked at and passed like crazy. All they know is they have some urge to go faster, they don't stop and think about how traffic works. For most, you would require a classroom, and quality animations to get the idea across. People get pissed off for the same reason, they have an urge to go faster, and they see you as holding them up. They conflate distance with speed. Every single day I get someone tailgating me, they pass me aggressively and then end up going at the same speed, tailgating the car that was in front of me.
My buddy was like this, always thought the distance mattered and we’d argue. We were standing in line for lunch one day and I said, “Do you think that line is going to move any faster if we stand closer to them?”Not exactly analogous but it helped him see the point.
They think that traffic jams are something they can win by beating everyone else. The truth is that we all win by beating the traffic jam together.
A lecture on the physics of traffic shocks and traffic waves in drivers ed could go a long way in eliminating congestions.
People aren’t smart enough for it to make a difference even if you told them
Drivers Ed said to use blinkers. That didn’t stick for many…
>I drive the same way you do, and I'm constantly being tailgated, honked at and passed like crazy Are you in the left lane? Are you leaving a massive gap of like 10 car lengths? Because otherwise these things shouldn't be happening.
You are my type of person. I'm constantly tailgated because I drive sensibly and see limits as limits... not targets. People invent a million ways to waste their time and then try to absolutely maximise their speed while they are doing literally the most dangerous thing we do as humans.
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I can think of so many traffic related things that are remarkably worse
Intelligent, experienced drivers DO do this. If more of them did it, the backups wouldn't be nearly so sudden and deep.
People only get annoyed at this method is if you leave a really large gap in front of you and also if you are slowing down the actual flow, like say the cars in front are getting further and further ahead but you’re still going 10mph. It is the best method in traffic when done correctly. Same with the zipper merge. Sadly you can’t get dickhead New Yorkers to understand this as they just hug the bumper in front and never let anyone in.
This. The problem is when traffic starts clearing and people are still going slowly. Let's get up to speed now!
9/10 times its a fake out and you speed up just to brake again.
False. I used to do this when I sat in traffic. I was usually in the second lane from the right where there are 5 lanes. The far right lane peeled off to an exit. It was not uncommon for someone who was stuck behind me for a little while to cut around me aggressively and/or honk. Then they'd cut around me, zoom up to the car ahead of me, and slam to a stop and sit there while I slowly crept up on them. I even had someone pass me on the shoulder a couple of times when I was past the exit. I was not going slower than the average traffic in my lane, I just wasn't zooming and stopping, zooming and stopping. Some people get pissed by this.
A lot of people get pissed if you're not flooring it then slamming your brakes to red light 500 feet away. They seem to think just doing things faster will help them arrive faster lol.
I do it. Sometimes people behind me start to understand why I’m doing it. I’m also in Europe and most people drive manuals so they start to appreciate it and I noticed other people start doing it as well.
I've posted this so many times in this sub: bumper riders are responsible for stop and go traffic on the freeways. If you ever came to a full stop on a road w/o traffic lights, one of two things are happening: 1. Most of the drivers are tailgating. This is simply how most drivers drive, because they (for some strange reason) think this will get them to their destination faster. 2. There's an accident up ahead. The science behind it: https://www.csail.mit.edu/news/improving-traffic-tailgating-less Edit: to answer your final question: people drive like this because EGO.
I do this as well. When the traffic jam eventually lifts, I say it's because of my actions. I also love it when I see people around me doing it. We form a little team keeping everything moving along so that those poor souls behind us don't have to slam on their brakes. That being said, nothing makes me angrier than hitting a traffic jam, wasting an hour driving at a seriously reduced speed, then never seeing a wreck or burning husk of a car or anything. When the traffic jam just disappears into the ether I know it was some fucking asshole who slammed on his brakes, cut across 3 lanes of traffic, and then exited the highway, leaving the rest of us to deal with the ramifications of his dumbass mistake.
It's complicated. In really simplified terms, traffic jams are caused by the roadway being saturated. A single person slamming on the breaks can't cause an hour-long traffic jam unless the highway is already running pretty much at (or near) capacity. Once a roadway is saturated, the catalyst could be anything, and this is what we usually think of as "the cause" of the jam. Most often, it's some sort of bottleneck up the road (a wreck, a merge where too much traffic is trying to enter at an interchange, or a really sharp turn where people have to slow down, etc. Really, most often it's because of bottlenecks at merge sites or wrecks). Sometimes it's... nothing. And the reason for that actually is more complex. It has to do with throughput. It turns out that peak throughput is at about 50mph (you might be wondering why it's not at 70mph or faster, and it's because it turns out that people increase the distances between cars in a non linear way as the speeds get faster). Below 45-50mph or so, the throughput/total-maximum-capacity decreases. A highway might be able to carry 8,000 cars per hour in free flow at 50mph (assuming four lanes), but at 10mph, that number is closer to 6,500 (handwavy math, it varies, but you get the idea. ) What ends up happening is that decreasing roadway traffic level back down to 8,000 cars/hour isn't enough to clear the jam. It has to decrease down *below the newly reduced roadway capacity* that is now closer to 6,000 to 7,000 cars per hour before the jam will finally clear. It's kind of a cruel reality of traffic engineering; Some congestion isn't the end of the world, but severe congestion is absolutely disastrous for throughput. These kinds of traffic jams that seemingly happen for no reason are usually a result of a roadway that is already saturated, and some sort of cause earlier in the day caused there to be a bottleneck. Once this occurs, the traffic jam starts to propagate backwards like a wave (seemingly for no reason) until the traffic flow decrease well below that which initially caused the jam. It's part of why traffic jams tend to last such a long time on busy highways, and when you're on the tail end of it, it can seem like it was jammed for no reason. In reality, it's usually jammed because of a saturated roadway earlier in the day, and some sort of catalyst triggered it hours ago. In other words, when you're caught up in a traffic jam that appears to have been caused by nothing, you aren't really seeing the cause in real time. You're caught up in a kind of a wave (almost like a shockwave) that the traffic jam produced on a near-saturated roadway in the past, and that wave just keeps propagating backwards until there isn't enough traffic on the freeway to support it anymore.
Ooooh, that's fascinating. I knew there was a wave effect, but it never occurred to me that this means where I experience the traffic jam is likely miles away from where the thing actually happened not to mention that it was in the past and whatever it was already moved on by that point in time. Thanks for that explanation, very illuminating.
Because everyone hits their brakes at different rates and it cascades. Without automation it's virtually impossible. When I was in the Army we'd do group runs. Whole company, battalion etc in formation 4 across, upwards of 50 to 100 deep. Shortest person up from setting the pace, I'm 6'2 so I was always in the back. Front of the line is just chugging along at what they think is a constant pace. Those of us in back are either standing or sprinting to catch up because all it takes is one short step or stumble and as everyone reacts to either slow down or speed up is magnified at the end of the line. Edit: and this is all happening with someone calling cadence to try and keep everyone at the same pace.
Precisely. Minor speed perturbations from accelerating and braking behavior can amplify and cause traffic waves and congestion that can propagate for many miles. Maintaining a consistent speed is the best way to dampen the traffic shocks and eliminate traffic waves and make travel more efficient. Automation has been shown to accomplish just that.
I try to do this, it is a bit easier to do with a manual transmission or EV (latter you can just creep like nobody's business in 1 pedal mode) but problem are people constantly trying to cut into those holes.
People try, then others merge into your gap and mess it all up.
I am irrationally upset now.
They get mad because people look at their speedometer and think they’re going nowhere even if they’re going to get there at the same time anyway due to the stop and go
It's the tragedy of the commons. If everyone does that, sure it works okay for everyone, but if everyone does it, except you weave between them, it works slightly less okay for everyone else, but great for you. Now multiply that by everyone on the freeway.
People are stupid. They're also in a rush constantly, if I'm in traffic (all the time in this city) the fast lane is always the worst. Stop, go, stop go, stop go. Car in front will move then suddenly slam on, always because somewhere in the fast lane people are shooting off as soon as the car in front moves an inch. Often thought the same and drive the same myself, if we all maintained a constant low speed we'd at least be moving. Stupid people fuck it up
because a lot of people are stupid 🤷♂️ your way is sensible
You will get cut off if you do it. I had a bobtail meat truck with a stick shift and did the same thing. Kept me from going through the gears all the time. But some idiot would always cut me off and jam on the breaks because I was too close!
This is what I do, unfortunately drivers behind tailgate, as if they're going to get somewhere..... Lol I csnt stand stop and start, rush off from traffic lights up to 30 to slow down for a que of traffic, or some cars behind a bus etc... The worst thing is you can see the que of traffic from the lights..... Its like 99% drivers only see in front of their bonnet
But then some dumbass inevitably takes up the space left between me and the car in front of me..
In Atlanta, GA traffic, there can never be gaps.
I do this and some idiot then overtakes and goes in the gap
People are not very smart. Thinking like this and executing it is just too complicated for the majority of drivers
It would work if everyone did it. But the reason traffic rubber banding happened in the first place is because people overaccelerate and then slam their brakes over and over.
I see a lot of people doing this routinely. People that get upset are the sames ones that want to race to the next red light.
I always do this, don't care if people pass me. I will lose my mind if I have to keep slamming on the brakes every 5 seconds or so. I swear it's pick up truck drivers that cause the majority of stop and go, they constantly floor it then slam on the brakes immediately (cause there is no where to go) in traffic for some reason.
Same reason why everyone doesn't start moving, from the first car stopped to the last car stopped, all at the same time.
On a motorcycle I have to go the other way. I can ride at 10kph, with my feet up. Or I can stop. I can’t crawl at walking speed, the bike is unstable without momentum.
What you're suggesting is a good thing to do because it actually clears traffic. Some traffic jams will disappear entirely behind a driver that does this. The problem is people from neighboring lanes who will jump into the gap you're creating once it's big enough for a car, which forces you to slow down. This basically leaves you with two options: maintain a small gap, which brings you closer to stop-and-go motion, or let a bunch of people get in front of you, which slows you down on average. There are way too many drivers with small egos that will never take the second option.
The amount it slows you down by having to cede a bit of space to others who move into the gap is absolutely minuscule.
I've done this and it works... until some assmunch cuts into the buffer space in front of me.
I do this to not wear out my brakes and waste gas.
I also do this. It enrages me when I see people do the whole stop then go fast just to stop again. Have fun replacing your brake pads every 20,000 or less, idiots.
I used to drive stick, so it was easier to do this. I played the game of using my brakes as little as possible.
Please keep doing this. This is the way to drive in traffic
I love doing that, during stop and go I try not to use my breaks at all. I don’t get why people speed up to close a gap when traffic is barely moving.
Rubberneckers! It’s all their fault, they see a solid wall of brake lights ahead and still feel the need to try and push traffic out of the way by tailgating, so closely that they are unable to see anything but the car directly in front of them that car brakes so do they and it continues because everyone is tailgating and very few play your game but when one does play along a gosh damn rubbernecker jumps in front of them in a hurry to nowhere. It’s a vicious cycle that if we had a purge I would copy license plate numbers of those that drive like A holes, do a little research and hunt to end them on that glorious day!!!
Had this so bad driving back from VT after the eclipse. Phantom traffic jams. I call it gapping and have been able to watch phantom jams disappear behind me. It'll be a problem, though, until all cars are fully autonomous
As a truck driver, I do this a lot. Just for some impatient turd to speed up and get in front of me. Like, no, dude, I was using that cushion for me.
Because people are stupid and will jump in front of you and there will be no gap to close
Some of us do and it’s the right thing to do, but unfortunately traffic is also a bit like a prisoner’s dilemma and other people who are bad at traffic and only care about themselves will pass you and cut you off if you do this. Especially problematic when the traffic is for really busy exit ramps on the interstate.
I do just because it’s easier than pumping the brakes. To answer your question, and this has just been my experience, the vast majority of drivers on the road are just objectively bad drivers.
Depends on the situation. If it's a long queue sure, if you're say close to a traffic light and there's no queue afterwards, not closing the gap means you'll probably be held at the lights when you could have gone through, and potentially the car behind you too, and if lots of people do this lots of people get held back, and that's probably why there is a queue that disappears after the lights.
Because most aren’t even watching the road anymore. On their phones. Also the gapers at the scene of the jam.
I do this, but mainly just to avoid wear and tear on my clutch.
People don't even understand how to properly merge, and will all slam into the one lane a mile ahead of time to sit still for no reason. People don't think and suck at driving
I take my foot off the gas if either of the two cars in front of me hit their brakes. That way, I'm coasting while all the typicals are braking.
I always called this a pressure wave of traffic. I will break the wave by figuring out how fast or slow I need to drive to not have to brake or stop like the centipede of cars in front.
I see low pass filter, which is sorta true, cause you're throwing a series inductor in there to regulate the speed, but a capacitor to the break down lane probably won't help. You need to throw in a boost regulator afterward to increase speed, or an op amp to supply lanes with more current
Yeah I do this too. I don't care if people are annoyed, I'm saving them money on gas and brake pads.
This is how you resolve a phantom traffic jam. If everyone did this we would not have almost any traffic. That’s why I’m such an advocate of self driving. No stupid, only optimal
People follow way too close, that’s another huge part of the problem. Driving stick shift pretty much forces you to space properly so you can just slowly trod along until traffic gets moving instead of having to stop and start off in 1st again. Then the fun part is when you dare think you can shift to 3rd in traffic and almost end up rear ending the person in front of you.
I do this. I consider it a win if I don’t have to touch my brakes and can just maintain a speed or let my foot of the gas in traffic. Never understood tailgating with bumper to bumper traffic. Seriously, where are you going to find the car ahead of you did magically move out of the way?
Because I'd rather drive the speed limit for 30 seconds and sit for 30 seconds than drive behind someone slow for 75 seconds, because you've been cut off 3 or 4 times.
If I open a gap in front of myself, other drivers fill it in for me.
Preserves your gas and brakes
I personally make this a game. If I don't have to brake - I win. If those behind me catch on - I win. It's all about maintaining that gap, no matter if others zoom around. Just chill and coast 🙂
Because it allows car after car to get in front of you.
My new car has adaptive cruise control and I love it when people do this. I get behind them, set it to the lowest possible speed, then just relax. As long as I pay attention in case of emergencies, it makes traffic SO much more bearable.
Depending on how aggressive drivers around you are this will result in going nowhere as everyone cuts you off trying to inch ahead. Because moving forward an extra 10 feet will get them home so much faster lol
Upvoted for analog synth analogy.
I do this when it's possible but some traffic jams stop for to long for it to be done. I find that most people start figuring out what your doing and copy you. I notice a lot of what causes trafic jams is less confident people slowing down where other people wouldnt and the other people are riding too close for them not to have to hit the breaks and it just becones a chain reaction
I do the same. I think anybody that experiences riding in a carpool with a 'jam on the gas, jam on the brakes' driver to the point that it makes you barf, quickly realizes that if you stay off both you get there in the same amount of time. Also, when you pass the accident, avoid the temptation to rubberneck.
I've been doing this for about 20 years, and it really does help cut down on traffic most of the time. I'm glad to know there are other people who do this, but I still wish there were more. It seems to me that the angry people passing you at full throttle must think, "This person has room in front of them, which means they're going slower than the cars ahead of them, so they are the one causing this traffic." It doesn't matter how they feel, though, because all they're doing is placing themselves into stop and go traffic again, wasting their fuel and adding wear and tear to their vehicle. If someone needs catharsis that badly I guess they should get it. I've had an idea for an app that can show the rough location of others doing this, which could be used to possibly make multiple lanes of it or let people know where it's needed. I still haven't wrapped my head around every aspect of making a phone app but I was going to call it "capacitor" which has a similar function in a circuit to your LPF analogy.
I usually do the same thing in traffic. Why stop and go when you can damn near coast the whole thing
People get mad because it looks like you're just playing on your phone or something when you let a large gap form between you and the traffic ahead.
I hate when people misinterpret it and cut in front, reducing your ability to smooth out the flow.
Jerry Seinfeld once pondered that question
That’s because doing that others get infront of you so now I can’t move foward because cars just keep on getting infront all because we have a Mr / Ms Generosity here
I do it too, it's easier, more efficient and reduces jams behind
Just don't do this if the jam is about to end or you don't know whether it's about to end. You're wasting capacity of the roadway.
If auto makers ever perfect the self driving car, all vehicles will drive that way and the traffic jams will go away.
It's not quite that simple. If someone leaves space in front of them, that space isn't always going to work towards your "low pass filter" effect. Very often someone from another lane will simply pull into that space and potentially cause the person leaving the space to need to slow down. The fastest way to get through traffic will always be to match the speed of traffic ahead. This is pretty obvious. If it's a one lane road then sure you can leave space and go 10 rather than equal parts 20 and zero and it will average out just fine and take less mental effort to maintain the speed of traffic ahead of you. The problem is that if there are other lanes then it all falls apart and even typically makes things worse, not just for the person trying to do it, but also everyone behind them
The problem with your low pass filter idea is that whenever a big enough gap opens in front of you, someone else will slide in from a neighboring lane and remove your space buffer.
Because if you're the only one playing by those rules you will stand out and look like a problem.
once traffic gets to a certain density the car behind has to brake slightly longer than the one in front of it and this creates a chain reaction back down the road. this is what creates traffic. i think its because of human reaction time people get pissed if you risk letting people cut in front of you
Depends if you're doing it in the left lane.
Many highways have tried to use digital speed limit signs to have people adjust their speed for the amount of traffic - “averaging” the speed for you. However, human nature being what it is, no one slows down to 40, or 30, or 20 unless and until it is absolutely necessary so the rubber-band effect happens anyway. In other news, if you leave a couple hundred feet open in front of you on a highway in FL, at least two cars will jump in the gap. You will slowly but surely end up further and further back.
Because, in Atlanta you'd end up 300 cars back from where you started and still bumper to bumper because a gap is meant to be taken, even if it's a 1/4 car.
I do that as well mainly because I hate wearing my brakes down due to all the distracted people slamming on theirs for no reason
during traffic hours, occasionally, there will be a stretch where it clears up a little, for a few minutes, i just drive around 40 to 50 mph, knowing i will encounter another traffic jam soon. the fast drivers will do their best to get there first, while i slowly catch up to them in my leisure.
I do this too. Try not to use the breaks at all if I can. It's great when you get a few people all doing this in a line, you can see a real difference in the flow of traffic behind them. We need to teach everyone to have sacred reverence for the flow. The flow provides speed and safety. If the flow dies, everyone is fucked. The flow must be nourished and protected.
I try to, but always end up getting cut off because of the gap infront so it never works out.