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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: 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.

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

    --
    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.

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