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posted by Fnord666 on Friday December 15 2017, @07:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the automate-that-already dept.

Gotta keep 'em separated:

When unexplained traffic jams happen, says an MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) study, you can probably blame tailgaters. The researchers say that if drivers kept an even distance between cars rather than driving too close to the vehicle in front, traffic flow would remain even. This "bilateral control," could double the speed of the average vehicle on busy highways.
...
This ideal is very different from what is the norm in most thinking about traffic, especially by those stuck in it. Drivers (and, consequently, vehicle control systems) tend to be looking ever forward, responding only to what's ahead and largely ignoring what's behind. Thus, in stop-and-go or slow-and-go situations (traffic jams), each vehicle reacts to the vehicle in front, causing intermittent slowdowns or stops (jams) in wave-like patterns. When vehicles are working to maintain equal distances both from the car in front and the vehicle behind, the MIT paper contends, these wave patterns are minimized and traffic flows more smoothly.

Maintaining even spacing facilitates lane changes and merges as well.


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  • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by edIII on Friday December 15 2017, @10:04PM (9 children)

    by edIII (791) on Friday December 15 2017, @10:04PM (#610498)

    As long as you are doing at least the speed limit, you would get no problems from me. If you are doing under, can't get the fucking hint when I come up on you, and you slow down, it will be fucking on that day. I don't believe people have a right to the fast lane (which for some is the passing lane only), to do 5-10 mph under the speed limit. Texas at least will ticket you for going 10 or more *under*.

    I've gone nuclear fucking mad at those people, *especially* when they're being fucking idiots and matching pace with the next car deliberately to block all the traffic behind them. It's not cute, but extremely fucking discourteous to the dozens of drivers that start backing up behind two fucking idiots that are trying to educate everyone behind them. Except, they're not, but being fucking assholes instead. Nobody cares, and then you have road rage while car after car after car after car starts piling up behind Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumbass.

    If you want to take it nice and easy, the slow lane is for you. Not the fast lane.

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    Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
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  • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday December 16 2017, @09:32AM (4 children)

    by Immerman (3985) on Saturday December 16 2017, @09:32AM (#610666)

    I agree - there's no excuse for going slow in the passing lane - it's there for *passing* - either pass or get over. Well, actually, I suppose there is one excuse - if you're driving as fast as you're comfortable with, and the assholes in the slow lane won't let you over. I've run into that problem a few times, especially with truckers that pull into the passing lane to let an onramp merge, and then have the people keep passing on the right instead of letting them get back out of the way. You can build a nasty slow snarl in no time that way.

    As for speed and tailgating - I normally stay close to the limit, and if I notice traffic accumulating behind me I will speed up a bit and/or try to make it easy to pass - e.g. slow down when there's a passing zone with no oncoming traffic, or even pull over and let folks pass if I'm obviously going a lot slower than they are . That's just basic road courtesy.

    But if some asshole starts riding my bumper too hard I'm inclined to slow down to a safe speed for their following distance. Especially if it's a big heavy vehicle - where momentum dictates that in any accident I'll be the one who ends up paying the price.

    • (Score: 2) by ancientt on Monday December 18 2017, @12:29AM (1 child)

      by ancientt (40) <ancientt@yahoo.com> on Monday December 18 2017, @12:29AM (#611180) Homepage Journal

      Okay, but what about mandatory mergers?

      I mean, my driving strategy is to Drive Zen™. I try to let people merge in front of me when I can. I signal when I'm changing lanes. I focus on remembering that we're all in this together. When there's a backup, I try to drive at a pace that will let me slow down without needing brakes. It happens a fair amount, but I try to let the jerks do what they do and be a driver that helps everyone get where they need to to be.

      All that said, sometimes I'm that asshole. Three or four days a week, I drive a route that has two lanes merge into one. Many, maybe most days, the traffic backs up in a way that clogs up and slows everybody down. Some jerks try to bypass the wait of merging. They drive in the lane that's ending, as far as they can. They're basically trying to cut in line. Most days, I move into the lane that continues and I wait. I get in line and I wait. I wait for traffic to move along, as it does... eventually. Occasionally, however, I'll stay in the lane that is ending, being forced to merge, but drive at the same speed as the cars in the lane that continues. This means the people who would otherwise be cutting in line are forced to drive at the same speed as the rest of the cars waiting in line. Results seem to indicate that everyone moves at the pace which moves traffic as efficiently as possible. I'm torn though. I know from what I've read that giving a buffer in front helps everyone in the whole.

      Now we come to the reason I'm asking you what you think. You've given an opinion I can respect, one I can identify with. That's why I want to know what you think. What I don't know is whether refusing to jump the line improves traffic flow overall or whether it hurts. My sense of fairness gets a boost when I help everyone trying to be fair get their rightful place, but does it really help traffic flow overall?

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      • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday December 18 2017, @03:17AM

        by Immerman (3985) on Monday December 18 2017, @03:17AM (#611255)

        Drive Zen. I like it. I tend to think of it more in terms of Tao - on the road or otherwise I try to contribute to "psoitive flow. Or a phrase from some novel that I really liked: an easing of the way.

        I don't know that I'm qualified to have an opinion on efficient merging - seems like the sort of thing that you'd need to to rigorous experiments on to be able to talk about anything but your own preconceptions.

        That said - you sound like my kind of asshole. When efficiency is dubious (even when it isn't, really), fairness seems like a good goal to pursue. One of my own favorite examples of benevolent assholery is one of those truck snarls. Waited patiently in line until it was my turn to start passing the truck on the right - and then just didn't. Hung out at his rear bumper as traffic piled up behind me feeling all those glares trying to burn a hole in the back of my head until everyone in front of me cleared the truck, and then fell back just enough so he could get over and flashed my lights to let him know it was clear.

        Swear I had more than a few singed hairs from all the glares, but my reward was watching what had been a rapidly growing traffic snarl dissolve back to smooth flow before the truck vanished in my rear-view mirror.

    • (Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday December 19 2017, @08:29PM (1 child)

      by edIII (791) on Tuesday December 19 2017, @08:29PM (#611958)

      The one thing I will say is that if somebody puts on their turn signal, I cooperate, whatever that means. If I got to slow down because the slow lane isn't letting people in and the guy in front of me is having trouble getting in, I'll help in what ways I can.

      A turn signal is a polite request, or at least that's how I look at them.

      That's just basic road courtesy.

      You hit the mail on the head. A lot of people don't practice that anymore.

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      Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
      • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday December 20 2017, @02:34AM

        by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday December 20 2017, @02:34AM (#612118)

        Sadly true.

  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday December 17 2017, @03:02PM (3 children)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Sunday December 17 2017, @03:02PM (#610985) Journal

    That's strictly true on the autobahn, but not in America. In the US drivers have no compunction about passing on the right. That tendency dilutes the "passing" of the passing lane to near meaninglessness. We can either get mad about slowpokes in the passing lane and drivers who pass on the right, or get mad about neither. But if they don't ticket for driving slow in the fast lane or for passing on the right, then the muddle that is American driving culture will continue.

    Me, I give myself permission to drive in that lane if I'm going 5-10mph faster than the limit, and let the Jehu's stuff it. If somebody tailgates me aggressively I slow down until they pass on the right and explode in a surge that is sure to sweep out any highway patrol down the road. Doesn't always work, but the satisfaction of seeing them pulled over a few minutes later is immense.

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    Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday December 21 2017, @08:54PM (2 children)

      by edIII (791) on Thursday December 21 2017, @08:54PM (#612949)

      That satisfaction may be misplaced. I've personally been driving to the hospital, after my doctor told me to go to the emergency room NOW, and had somebody start giving me shit the same way. It didn't work out of them at all. In their case, all they were doing is slowing somebody down trying to get somewhere in an emergency.

      Ever since then I consider that with a-holes on my ass in traffic. I just try to get out the way because I don't know what is going on with them.

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      Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
      • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday December 21 2017, @09:33PM (1 child)

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday December 21 2017, @09:33PM (#612962) Journal

        Ed, if you're in such dire straits that you need to go to the emergency room NOW, then you should not be driving. What happens if you're speeding in the passing lane and lose consciousness, you take out a shortbus with 12 kids in it?

        Call an ambulance, and let them blaze along in the passing lane with their lights and siren going. I and everyone else will dutifully get out of the way then.

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        Washington DC delenda est.
        • (Score: 2) by edIII on Friday December 22 2017, @03:14AM

          by edIII (791) on Friday December 22 2017, @03:14AM (#613094)

          You say that, but without insurance that means yet another $3k-$4k of medical debt sold off to vultures that will pester the fuck out of me and sink my credit even further. I don't need that noise, and ambulance services are unavailable to large swaths of the poor, and even middle class.

          Can you afford a few grand hit to not drive? Got your message loud and clear, but it ain't that simple. Life sucks, but that's where it is.

          If medical was single payer though, I would have no excuse.

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          Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.