It is no surprise that driver lane changes in traffic affects the flow of traffic itself. When the density of vehicles is low, it can lead to efficiencies in traffic flow. However, when the density reaches a certain level, it has the opposite effect. In this situation, when a driver moves into another lane, the vehicle behind the lane-changing vehicle suffers a delay, which leads to a delay imposed upon the vehicle behind it, etc., that compounds itself as a delay that ripples through the traffic behind. There are several traffic flow models that simulate this, but they can be contradictory in their results. A group of researchers from the Department of Traffic Management School at the People's Public Security University of China obtained quantitative data on this effect by flying DJI Phantom 4 drones over a target vehicle driving in congested traffic. They found that a single lane change (LC) adds between 3.9–9.5 seconds of delay to the cars in the trarget lane.
A key dependency observed, which would not surprise too many people who are accustomed to driving in congested traffic, was the space between vehicles. They found that 5.5 meters was a break point between behavior for the trailing vehicle in the next lane. It was found that when the distance between vehicles is less than 5.5 m, the vehicle following the target vehicle tends to drive at a constant speed or decelerate, but when the distance between vehicles is greater than 5.5 m, the vehicle following the target vehicle tends to first accelerate to prevent the target vehicle from entering the lane (Ed note: I've always thought of this as "Philadelphia driving etiquette"), but then the speed gradually decreases when the target vehicle is forcibly inserted.
This research provides a theoretical reference for the analysis of LC of driverless vehicles. To successfully complete a lane change, a driverless vehicle must comprehensively consider the running state of the vehicle following it, not only to improve its own running speed, but also to reduce the impact on the vehicle behind it.
Journal Reference:
Yang, Q., Lu, F., Ma, J. et al. Analyzing the delays of target lane vehicles caused by vehicle lane-changing operation. Sci Rep 11, 22047 (2021).
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-00262-1
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 14 2021, @03:14PM (5 children)
"when the distance between vehicles is greater than 5.5 m, the vehicle following the target vehicle tends to first accelerate to prevent the target vehicle from entering the lane"
SO THE ASSHOLE MERGING CAN SEE YOU!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 14 2021, @03:49PM (4 children)
DONT FORGET TO LAY ON THE HORN
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 14 2021, @04:04PM (3 children)
You don't need the horn with all that yelling you do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 14 2021, @04:27PM (2 children)
BACK IN YOUR LANE ASSHAT
(Score: 2) by sgleysti on Sunday November 14 2021, @11:06PM (1 child)
I really hope that the four posts above this one are all the same anon.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Monday November 15 2021, @03:14AM
The really scary part is that they all might be different ACs, and they are all out driving on the roads and highways.
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 14 2021, @03:48PM (3 children)
A quaint custom from a more civilized age.
Even better when you think of doing it before you're halfway into my lane.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday November 14 2021, @05:32PM
People still signal in traffic, just by other means.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday November 15 2021, @04:08AM (1 child)
As the summary points out, your best bet if you need to be in the other lane is a sneak attack. If you signal, the following asshole has time to block you.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Monday November 15 2021, @09:16AM
Depends what you are driving. When I was getting my HR endorsement (CDL or HGV for you yanks or poms) the instructor said, and I quote, "Signal like you are supposed to and then just move over. They'll get out of your way."
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 14 2021, @03:55PM (1 child)
this is obviously BORING!
this should be observed from a energy waste stand point.
if we assume that constant velocity is the most efficient, calculate the most inefficient way to do it.
now throw some a.i. at it, add some marketing and now lobby of clubbermint to sell it as a new and improved driving law to the people... oh and don't forget to buy some shares and stuff of ex-con and a-ram-con etc etc ...
a more, poo-poo study would look at fossile fuel usage growth (especially fossile fuels that are not domestic available ("producted" is a misnomer, since fossile fuels are destroyed not produced)) and how "free" that countries democrazy is ... my guess, inverse correlation.
as for the glas-glow disaster: the message is clear. try to take away dirty domestic available fuels, sell them "better" gas and oil and use profits to improve own renewables.
i really tried to buy a e-bike from usa or europe. no go. china sold me one and solarpanels and inverters ... and batteries. not usa. not europe... or even toshiba the other 20 year-lasting battery maker.
nobody sayz a word that if coal (and today, a renewable energy wasteland, some sort of fossile needs to go into growing renewables) is used to further transition to renewables it is totally f#cking OK! china, you totally got my blessing to pollute away!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 14 2021, @04:18PM
Mr. President, we will look at your proposal in detail.
(Score: 2, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 14 2021, @04:01PM (6 children)
Only assholes drive during rush hour.
Seriously, you can find the kindest, sweetest grandmother in the world. But when she decides to drive into downtown LA at rush hour, she's an asshole. She'll threaten motorcyclists, she'll park herself right next to the 18-wheeler with turn signals on, she'll use her car as a weapon against all comers. She'll swerve to run over a squirrel, or armadillo, bunny, Bambi, or any other offensive wildlife. And probably left tire tracks down the illegal alien's back when he crossed the highway in front of her. Then backed up to run over his wife & kids. And, she'll kick that defenseless puppy when she arrives at her destination.
All the years I drove truck, I did my very best to leave, or arrive, in town hours before, or hours after rush hour ended. Of course, on a motorcycle everything is different. I've split lanes in places where it is positively illegal, and the local law will form posses to hunt you down when they spot it.
I swear, kindly old Farmer Brown is a great guy to talk to, but if the city grows out near his farm, he turns into an asshole at rush hour, and drives all his farm equipment out onto the highway just to screw with people.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday November 14 2021, @05:04PM
So much springs from this... why would you go out when you know the roads are already jammed? Is it because your boss is making you show up at a specific moment in time, they won't let you come to work later - or earlier? Is it because you "have to" drop your kids off at school in a specific time window, and they can't take the universally available bus, or walk? It can't be because the grocery store is about to close, grocery stores are almost universally ghost towns in the hours just after they open or just before they close. To me, the real answer as to why people hop in their cars and jam the roads worse than it already is during rush hour is: because F everyone else, I want to go NOW and I'm going to go NOW and we're all just going to deal with it.
S&M probably has a lot to do with it, too. Sadists who like being out in the world when they can tailgate and close people off from getting in front of them. Masochists who love being helplessly stuck in a ridiculous line of traffic, sometimes for hours; there's probably a more refined kink description for this, maybe along the Dominant / Submissive genre...
Disney's Mr. Wheeler / Mr. Walker cartoon covered this, in the 1960s I think, maybe earlier. See above about social freedom to express repressed kinks in public...
My ex-father in law was a truck driver, nice guy, much nicer than his daughter, but I digress... Any route that took him through Atlanta, he would time so as to arrive outside the city in the late afternoon. Have dinner, shower, try to get to sleep by 6pm so he could get up around 2am and be driving through Atlanta in the 3am-4am window. Same guy relocated his family to Louisiana, not only for the cheap housing, but also to be centrally located for the bulk of his travels.
Miami, at least, had regulations about hours during which farm equipment was allowed on public roads - I think they had to be back in the fields by 7am, not sure when their window opened, but I'd run up behind them on my way in to my 8am job downtown sometimes.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 14 2021, @05:24PM (4 children)
> Only assholes drive during rush hour.
Rush hour turns normal drivers into assholes.
ftfy
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 14 2021, @07:40PM (2 children)
My mother had to be instructed to deliberately cut off the car in the next lane, by putting the nose of her vehicle into the next lane, because no one would let her in when she signaled in traffic around a major city. Her sitting there waiting to be LET in was causing a traffic jam.
Once the people who live in an area drive like that, anyone coming to there thinking they can drive by the law, using their signals, will quickly discover their car utterly immobilized. You brought this on yourselves.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 14 2021, @09:08PM (1 child)
same shithead attitude about not letting people in is why zipper merges don't work
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 14 2021, @09:46PM
Zipper merges don't work because people promoting them try to use them everywhere. Including places where zipper merges should not be used.
(Score: 2) by sgleysti on Sunday November 14 2021, @11:08PM
I'm pretty sure that was Runaway's point.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Snotnose on Sunday November 14 2021, @08:19PM (2 children)
Jeez, I remember making this comment on Usenet in the 80s when SUVs started to be a thing.
If you are in a sedan, aka a car I can see around, then I'll let you right in, signal or not. If you are in an SUV, oversized truck, or any other vehicle I can't see around then you can fuck right off.
If you're driving a semi then I'm super nice to you because I've found most semi drivers are nice to me. You turn on your turn signal, I'll slow down and, when I see the ass end of your truck, I'll flash my headlights.
Relationship status: Available for curbside pickup.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 15 2021, @11:02AM (1 child)
Most semi drivers are nice, but more than once I have encountered tail gating aggressive lane changing, driving in the left lane when there are signs explicitly forbidding it truck drivers who are acting like they already lost their operator's license, don't own the truck (or anything of value they care about losing) so F the world and especially any driver in their way. One even had crash damage on the front looking like he had rear ended a package van recently. That particular one was feeling the need to speed faster than the 80 in a 65 that three lanes of heavy traffic was already doing.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 15 2021, @02:40PM
> feeling the need to speed faster than the 80 in a 65
Perhaps that driver was speeding chemically too, meth?? Before there were rules about how many hours could be driven in a day, use of stimulants was common among truck drivers. At least if some popular songs are any indication...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by nostyle on Sunday November 14 2021, @10:15PM (5 children)
In my youth, I learned that any car driven by an old man wearing a hat was a danger - either because it was driven well under the speed limit, or because it would turn or change lanes unexpectedly. I adjusted my driving habits accordingly.
In my old age, I started wearing a hat.
(Score: 2) by sgleysti on Sunday November 14 2021, @11:11PM
I hope that, by the time I'm old, I won't have to drive a car to get where I need to go.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 15 2021, @12:17AM
Driving While Asian
appropriate for the location of the spy drone study
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 15 2021, @01:25AM
In my old age I started wearing a hat when I go out (baseball-style cap), but it is because I learned from my father's example. He got skin cancer on his head, I'm trying to avoid that mess.
(Score: 2) by nostyle on Monday November 15 2021, @03:04AM (1 child)
Would some kind soul please explain to me how my parent post rates a troll moderation? Perhaps I might avoid posting another troll in the future.
I am near 70. I wear a hat and I drive slow. Deal with it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 15 2021, @03:24AM
It's nothing you did, there's at least one mod from Trollhättan (where SAAB cars used to be made) who regularly mods random posts as -1 Troll. Same thing happened to me recently, at worst I was -1 Off Topic. Just pretend you are promoting Swedish tourism....?
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Sunday November 14 2021, @10:53PM (7 children)
Some beady eyed, inbred, tooth gapped, bowlegged bureaucrat in their infinite wisdom had decided on daytime construction on the I-75 side. So everyone split into the I-85 and I-75 lanes. Then each lane of the I-75 side closed off, one after the other with no warning aside from a big arrow electric sign that you could see after the car in front of you had merged left. So we all merged into the I-85 traffic. Then a single lane split off after all that for I-75.
Everything ran smoothly, as long as you weren't planning to go anywhere.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 15 2021, @03:38AM
Imagine that. Some beady eyed, inbred, tooth gapped, bowlegged bureaucrat from Georgia has mod points on SN.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 15 2021, @11:08AM (5 children)
First sign of limited local knowledge, or impaired decision making ability: "I was driving I75 through Atlanta recently" followed by any complaint.
I75 through Atlanta is a reference standard for just how bad "Level of Service" can get on a major roadway. No weather or special event challenge required.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 16 2021, @04:26AM (4 children)
This. But we just needed to get through Atlanta which we accomplished. We knew it was going to be bad, but closing down three lanes on top of all that is unsportsmanlike. Just saying.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 16 2021, @01:06PM (3 children)
Strategically, Atlanta is not someplace you go through. Probably something about how easily Sherman did it, never again! or some such.
Not on I75, not on the 285 beltway, not even through Hartford Airport, if you can help it - and this means no flights on Delta anywhere in the Southeast.
Atlanta is something to go around if at all possible. Last time we had business in town, on Peachtree street, there was no avoiding I75 for a stretch - Google Maps swore that any alternative was 30 minutes or more slower. So, we sat in 5 lanes of stop and go traffic for 45 minutes between 2 and 3pm on a weekday, because it was the most efficient way to get from A to B. Even Miami traffic flows better.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 16 2021, @01:31PM (2 children)
In other words, you did what I just did.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 16 2021, @02:07PM (1 child)
Only because of a destination smack in the middle of town. In the past 25 years I think I have been inside the 285 beltway a total of 3 times. Driven or flown around? Hundreds of times.
Also, I suspect if you had consulted Google Maps, it would have highlighted your issue with the construction diversion.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 16 2021, @02:11PM
It did. It still was faster to go through Atlanta.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by julian on Monday November 15 2021, @12:52AM (5 children)
Almost every day on my 12 freeway-mile commute someone attempts to enter my safety cushion in an attempt to get 1 car space ahead and arrive a fraction of a second sooner to their destination. Now I have to slow down to re-establish a safety cushion, which creates another tempting gap for another asshole to undertake me like he's at a track day.
If I close the gap to prevent them from entering my lane ahead of me then I'm now in an unsafe position; I'm too close to the car ahead of me to brake safely in an emergency. If I leave the gap open, they'll merge into my lane ahead of me and now I'm REALLY too close. Also, blocking them from entering my lane reliably causes road rage which just makes everyone less safe.
I've gotten a dash cam and I try defend my position but there's a certain percentage of drivers, I see them every day, who are aggressively lane changing and weaving between cars and putting us all at risk for absolutely no reason.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 15 2021, @11:18AM (3 children)
Traffic has been accurately described/modeled as a compressible gas for decades. Blockages and restrictions cause traveling waves like resonances in a flute.
As for the dash cam "solution," I own a GoPro, I have mounts for it that would make it a high quality dash cam. I have recorded several hours of driving, but not for potential use in court... Think about a court case in which you would derive benefit from showing video evidence. Sum up the effort invested in collecting all the video necessary to cover that 5 seconds of critical evidence. Wouldn't you much rather invest that effort in avoiding the court case in the first place?
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday November 16 2021, @06:47AM (2 children)
What's exactly the effort? My dash cam is always writing a loop over the card. If anything interesting happens I push one button and the current 30 sec are preserved. That's it.
I've many interesting clips and toying with an idea of opening a site with folks who don't show turns. Video, date and time, plate number. Cops - especially cops. I am sure people would be glad to submit theirs.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by julian on Tuesday November 16 2021, @07:33AM
You're thinking small time. Automatically OCR the license plates and use machine learning to recognize make and model. Automatically upload that to a database and assign cars a "score" based on crowd-sourced complaints. Then pair that system with a dash-mounted HUD that shows which cars are threats. Charge a small monthly subscription fee. Might be a viable business until AI driving takes over entirely.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 16 2021, @01:12PM
If it's a fun hobby, sure. Have you even been in a serious court case? I don't consider that fun.
I was "this close" to setting up an OCR plate reader cam + speed measuring radar or laser in my mailbox. Not to publish or shame, but to collect statistics. If the statistics confirmed what I thought, then I was going to rig a ramp with a (black) basketball on the top and have an automatic release that would roll it out in the street on an intercept trajectory just as the worst of the speeders came around the corner at 50+mph. Luckily, our speeders weren't in lifted trucks, but more often Corvettes and similar. Might have needed to use a WNBA or slightly smaller ball to ensure it got rolled up under the front bumper and not punted away.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 15 2021, @01:31PM
I travel a lot in congested traffic and many years ago I achieved my Zen state with driving. I did this when I realized that all those lane changes to get in the "faster" lane don't do anything. It largely averages out or any advantages are minimal. A few weeks ago there was this aggressive woman driving like that, including passing in the merge lane and on the shoulder, and I noted that in the 10 miles of traffic we shared, she passed me three or four times. :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 15 2021, @05:21PM
HOV lanes give an incentive to make a lot more lane changes during heavier traffic. The heavier the traffic, the more incentive there is for those who can use the HOV lane to force their way over to it causing more delays for everyone. That causes people more lost time, frustration, increases accidents and pollutes more. So why do we have these again?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday November 15 2021, @07:18PM
What if the kernel put each driver in the correct lane for efficiency? Oh, I see your interrupt is coming up in 3/4 of a mile and put that driver in the right lane.
If you think a fertilized egg is a child but an immigrant child is not, please don't pretend your concerns are religious