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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.
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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.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday December 15 2017, @08:18PM (14 children)
.... I think I understand the concept and can agree with it, but maintaining the even distance is something one would do for courtesy for those behind you. Likewise, if all drivers would obey turn signal requests to take a lane there would be less need to tailgate (put oneself in the best position to maneuver). It's almost a prisoner's dilemma - if everyone cooperates everyone collectively gets the best system possible. But in too many individual situations maintaining one's self-interest above everything else gets a person more perceived value.
Then again, if we were capable of cooperative action for the betterment of all then we'd all use public transit.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Friday December 15 2017, @09:14PM (5 children)
It's true that you cannot control the distance between you and the car behind you. If the guy behind you wants to tailgate, there's nothing you can do without sacrificing the safe following distance you're maintaining between you and the guy ahead of you. If you speed up to recover equidistance between the one in front and the one behind, the one behind will simply catch up and resume tailgating.
However, it's not necessary to pay attention to how much distance there is between you and the car behind you. You only have to keep safe distance in front of you and refuse to close it even if speeds on the road slow to single digits. If somebody wants to be a dick and jump into the space you've kept open, fine, let them. Re-establish your margin and keep it. When you come to a merge or somebody wants to or needs to change lanes to the spot ahead of you, they can without breaking your stride or jamming up the entire road, as they would with inadequate spacing. Everyone moves faster. Furthermore, it's contagious because it works.
There's always gonna be the guy who wants to weave in and out of traffic like a dick, but if everyone else is keeping proper spacing at least that behavior is less likely to cause an accident and jam up the whole road for hours. Also, peer pressure is real and can damp down on bad behavior, because it then becomes obvious to everyone, including the lane-hopper, that he's being a colossal asshole.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Friday December 15 2017, @10:34PM
Sharing? Calm driving? Are you some sort of socialist?!
I happen to agree with you. Driving like the only thing matters is arriving, safely, eventually, is far betterthan getting there two minutes (or seconds) sooner.
While the plural of anecdote is not data, we have all experienced the maniac over/undertaking/cutting off/etc, only to pull up behind/next to them a few sets of lights later.
Suppose someone has to ensure the profit of sellers of hypertension medications!
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Insightful) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday December 15 2017, @10:50PM
I think what TFA was suggesting exactly that - you try and cushion yourself between the car in front and the car behind. If the car behind closes in on you, close the distance with the car in front. If it gives you space, take a little more space from the car in front. If everyone averages their distances this way slowdowns have far less impact than if you have an unequal cushion between what's ahead of you and what's behind you. Too little space in front leads to you tapping your breaks and causing a wave. Too little space behind you and that driver will do the same.
You can only push that so far and keep safety with what's ahead of you, obviously. The car behind can't go faster than the car in front, nor can you. But the suggestion is to manage the cushion around your car.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by frojack on Saturday December 16 2017, @05:33AM (2 children)
Exactly. And this study is absolutely nothing new.
An electrical engineer published his method of single-handedly erasing traffic-waves (standing slow spots) by doing exactly as you said.
http://trafficwaves.org/trafexp.html [trafficwaves.org]
He published it on the web way back in 98, and it caught the eye of quite a few people, some were outraged one guy would do this, and wrote letters and even tried to get him arrested. This study just proves he was right all along.
Turns out the Highway patrol adopted his methods to clear standing jams:
I've heard Washington State Troopers on the scanner calling in enough patrol cars (or sheriffs or what ever is handy, to put up a rolling slowdown to clear standing jams that might otherwise last for hours and stretch for 10 or 20 miles back along the highway with absolutely nothing blocking the roadway. They roll along side by side behind the jam at a steady but slower speed, never catching the jam, never stopping, and in one pass through the jam it is cleared completely.
In Colorado they call it "Rolling Speed Harmonization". [slate.com]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by ElizabethGreene on Saturday December 16 2017, @09:44PM (1 child)
If you drive like this, in such a way as to remove standing waves, never tell anyone. People have a bucket they store road rage, and when you mention driving slower than the cars in front of you a portion of those people lose their minds and dump that rage bucket all over you.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday December 17 2017, @02:47PM
That is true, but it's interesting to persist in maintaining safe distance, smoothing out jams, and watch it spread to the cars around you. Initially there are a couple hotheads who want to weave through the lanes, but they quickly get stuck and notice everyone else around them is moving better with less stress. You can almost see the lightbulbs going on in their heads.
It's a fun little experiment I recommend to others here. Its power to lower your own traffic stress makes it worth doing, regardless.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Friday December 15 2017, @09:37PM (6 children)
It's the people and culture. I was stunned at the level of cooperation and near hive-like activity by the Chinese in one city I visited. Average distance between cars seem to be 2ft or less, and they made as many lanes as they could ignoring the markers. The amazing part was that average speed was about 60. My driver was in the far left lane and need to exit. The jaw dropping part was when he put on his turn signal, and somehow went diagonally as the cars opened up space.
These people in that city made it work, so it possible for large amounts of humans to work cooperatively for the betterment of all. I've seen it.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Friday December 15 2017, @09:48PM (4 children)
In Italy, cars will move over to let an overtaking car rough - both the car being overtaken, *and* the cars going the other way.
In Australia, the car being overtaken speeds up, and the cars on the other side drive *towards* the car overtaking, in some weird, almost suicidal game of chicken.
Culture?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @10:18PM (1 child)
You're mistaken. In Italy, they're moving over onto the sidewalk to overtake the guy in front of *them*.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Friday December 15 2017, @10:39PM
And the pedestrians, and everyone else, moves over, lets them back in, and keeps doing what they were doing.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday December 15 2017, @10:18PM
Culture it is.
In Russia it is customary to say thank you to a car that slowed or moved over by blinking emergency stop lights one or two times.
In Boston it is customary to play drunk to change lines in traffic.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Saturday December 16 2017, @06:15AM
Are you sure it's not Australia, but California where people drive like that?
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Saturday December 16 2017, @08:50PM
Yeah, I agree it's a culture thing. I was impressed with the skill and cooperation I saw in Italy the first time I visited. They also handle massive amounts of scooters and motorcycles, no problem. While back here in the states, murdering motorcyclists is practically a sport.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 16 2017, @03:02PM
This is idiotic. If you need to change lanes and they won't let you in, tailgating the guy ahead of you just makes matters worse as now you're more likely to hit the car ahead of you while you look to your side to see if you're clear for the lane change.
People tailgate because they want to prevent people from changing into their lane or they're morons that don't understand the relationship between time, speed, braking distance and how long it takes to notice that the driver ahead has put on their brakes.