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This article doesn’t mention a strategy you can take for breaking the wave: http://trafficwaves.org/ http://trafficwaves.org/ I originally found this info via

This article doesn’t mention a strategy you can take for breaking the wave: http://trafficwaves.org/ http://trafficwaves.org/ I originally found this info via the happy mutants at boingboing: https://boingboing.net/2013/06/23/howto-singlehandedly-erase-tra.html https://boingboing.net/2013/06/23/howto-singlehandedly-erase... After using this technique for years, I can tell you that changing your mode of driving when you encounter traffic is difficult. Especially when you’re not used to “letting people pass”. But I’m convinced it helps break the jams. I wonder if the autonomous vehicles in our future could adopt a similar strategy when encountering traffic to reduce jams for all of us even if they’re a small percentage of the overall drivers.

40four 7y ago
I liked the article, but I agree they should have made the way to correct this more clear. They briefly mention to increase you 'headway' in the end. I wish they would have hammered this point home, instead of waxing poetically about fluid-dynamical models, & detonation waves. The articles you linked do a great job at explaining how to fix this. Thanks for that! I believe this information should be taught as a basic part of drivers education. I intuitively started doing this many years ago. To me, it was obvious. You can see the wave of break lights in the distance, and the wave is slowly moving back towards you. People are so impatient, they insist on riding the bumper of the car in front of them, even in a traffic jam. Then they are caught in the cycle of accelerating quickly, then coming to a full stop. It's a simple fix. Drive slowly and steadily. Keep a large number of car lengths between the car in front of you. If you can manage to maintain the gap in front by the time you come to the back of the next 'jamiton', without breaking or stopping, the Congratulations! You just 'erased' that jam, or the wave of cars coming to a stop in that part of the jam. All of the cars behind you will benefit. And if enough drivers were practicing this, jams would be less & clear up faster. You are right though, the hard part is learning to not care when impatient drivers angrily speed around you, only to run up to the back of the (clearly visible) stopped cars. I just smile and laugh at how silly they are, pat myself on the back for being a smart driver, and a good citizen to all the cars behind me ;)
- mattrp 7y ago
  My view of jams is they are caused by three expectations drivers have: 1) that the speed limit is still the “minimum speed” recommendation in heavy traffic. Ie, if it’s 65, one can still attempt to drive 74. 2) that the left lane is going to be the fastest in heavy traffic and 3) that somehow using the soon-to-be-closed lane in a lane closure/traffic shift scenario is “skipping the line.” In my view if we had adaptable speed limits /expectations of speed, we could probably avoid jams altogether if everyone agreed that 35mph was an optimal speed for heavy traffic. There would be far fewer brake lights and people would have far better reaction times (provided the slower speed didn’t give them false sense of security leading to checking their cell phones). In any case, try this the next time you’re in a jam- move to the right most lane. Not only is everyone around you doing the opposite (trying to go left for fast), but there are also people exiting the highway altogether... creating a slightly faster moving lane.
droro 7y ago
I think it was that same article that inspired me to write an iOS app that displays your running average speed and notifies you if you deviate from it. It's been years since I've last built and run that app, but the source is here if anyone wants to take a look: https://github.com/robinmj/DeTrafficator https://github.com/robinmj/DeTrafficator
wreath 7y ago
> This article doesn’t mention a strategy you can take for breaking the wave: http://trafficwaves.org/ http://trafficwaves.org/ Thank you for sharing, what a pleasant read. Every time I visit my home city I'm shocked at the amount of cars in the street and consequently the traffic jam. I cannot begin to imagine how people feel after a long day at work, and what seems an even longer commute. No wonder everyone is on edge! I think such strategies should be taught in driving schools, not only rules of the road and how to maneuver a car.

40four 7y ago

I liked the article, but I agree they should have made the way to correct this more clear. They briefly mention to increase you 'headway' in the end. I wish they would have hammered this point home, instead of waxing poetically about fluid-dynamical models, & detonation waves. The articles you linked do a great job at explaining how to fix this. Thanks for that! I believe this information should be taught as a basic part of drivers education. I intuitively started doing this many years ago. To me, it was obvious. You can see the wave of break lights in the distance, and the wave is slowly moving back towards you. People are so impatient, they insist on riding the bumper of the car in front of them, even in a traffic jam. Then they are caught in the cycle of accelerating quickly, then coming to a full stop. It's a simple fix. Drive slowly and steadily. Keep a large number of car lengths between the car in front of you. If you can manage to maintain the gap in front by the time you come to the back of the next 'jamiton', without breaking or stopping, the Congratulations! You just 'erased' that jam, or the wave of cars coming to a stop in that part of the jam. All of the cars behind you will benefit. And if enough drivers were practicing this, jams would be less & clear up faster. You are right though, the hard part is learning to not care when impatient drivers angrily speed around you, only to run up to the back of the (clearly visible) stopped cars. I just smile and laugh at how silly they are, pat myself on the back for being a smart driver, and a good citizen to all the cars behind me ;)

mattrp 7y ago
My view of jams is they are caused by three expectations drivers have: 1) that the speed limit is still the “minimum speed” recommendation in heavy traffic. Ie, if it’s 65, one can still attempt to drive 74. 2) that the left lane is going to be the fastest in heavy traffic and 3) that somehow using the soon-to-be-closed lane in a lane closure/traffic shift scenario is “skipping the line.” In my view if we had adaptable speed limits /expectations of speed, we could probably avoid jams altogether if everyone agreed that 35mph was an optimal speed for heavy traffic. There would be far fewer brake lights and people would have far better reaction times (provided the slower speed didn’t give them false sense of security leading to checking their cell phones). In any case, try this the next time you’re in a jam- move to the right most lane. Not only is everyone around you doing the opposite (trying to go left for fast), but there are also people exiting the highway altogether... creating a slightly faster moving lane.

droro 7y ago

I think it was that same article that inspired me to write an iOS app that displays your running average speed and notifies you if you deviate from it. It's been years since I've last built and run that app, but the source is here if anyone wants to take a look: https://github.com/robinmj/DeTrafficator https://github.com/robinmj/DeTrafficator

wreath 7y ago

> This article doesn’t mention a strategy you can take for breaking the wave: http://trafficwaves.org/ http://trafficwaves.org/ Thank you for sharing, what a pleasant read. Every time I visit my home city I'm shocked at the amount of cars in the street and consequently the traffic jam. I cannot begin to imagine how people feel after a long day at work, and what seems an even longer commute. No wonder everyone is on edge! I think such strategies should be taught in driving schools, not only rules of the road and how to maneuver a car.