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Interesting. It reminds me of how traffic jams flow better when drivers simply drive a slow, steady pace rather than repeatedly accelerating to the car in front

Interesting. It reminds me of how traffic jams flow better when drivers simply drive a slow, steady pace rather than repeatedly accelerating to the car in front of them and stopping.

eyelidlessness 5y ago
I don’t know if it’s apocryphal, but I’ve heard of people studying this by purposefully spanning across a highway during stop and go rush hour, idling or barely accelerating to avoid braking. If true, this resulted in the flow of traffic behind them easing and gradually speeding up. When I drive (not often) it’s generally in a car with a manual transmission, and frequently coming to a complete stop is much more onerous than just lagging behind traffic a little. So I’ve tried this myself as my own one car experiment. First of all, I have definitely seen traffic behind me ease and flow better. Second of all, I’ve seen it ease around me as more aggressive drivers take advantage by merging in front of me. More importantly, it made driving in those conditions a hell of a lot less stressful. Getting used to “traffic isn’t moving much anyway, it’s really no big deal if people are passing me” gave me more patience and more time to look around me and see what’s going on with the swarm. And it gave me something intellectually engaging without taking my attention away from the task of driving. - - - I actually find the original topic very interesting but I wanted to share this in the analogy for any drivers who may get value from it.
- Zircom 5y ago
  I've also tried that method personally and have had numerous road-rage incidents directed at me because of it, so just fair warning to anyone who's also thought of taking this up.
  - eyelidlessness 5y ago
    I’m sorry you’ve experienced road rage as a response. I should say, I feel relatively safe trying this here. But I’m in the PNW where people are notoriously passive aggressive. But they seem perfectly happy to just “skip ahead” of me. But yeah I definitely could imagine a more aggressive response where I first learned to drive (DC metro).

Interesting. It reminds me of how traffic jams flow better when drivers simply drive a slow, steady pace rather than repeatedly accelerating to the car in front of them and stopping.

eyelidlessness 5y ago

I don’t know if it’s apocryphal, but I’ve heard of people studying this by purposefully spanning across a highway during stop and go rush hour, idling or barely accelerating to avoid braking. If true, this resulted in the flow of traffic behind them easing and gradually speeding up. When I drive (not often) it’s generally in a car with a manual transmission, and frequently coming to a complete stop is much more onerous than just lagging behind traffic a little. So I’ve tried this myself as my own one car experiment. First of all, I have definitely seen traffic behind me ease and flow better. Second of all, I’ve seen it ease around me as more aggressive drivers take advantage by merging in front of me. More importantly, it made driving in those conditions a hell of a lot less stressful. Getting used to “traffic isn’t moving much anyway, it’s really no big deal if people are passing me” gave me more patience and more time to look around me and see what’s going on with the swarm. And it gave me something intellectually engaging without taking my attention away from the task of driving. - - - I actually find the original topic very interesting but I wanted to share this in the analogy for any drivers who may get value from it.

Zircom 5y ago
I've also tried that method personally and have had numerous road-rage incidents directed at me because of it, so just fair warning to anyone who's also thought of taking this up.
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  I’m sorry you’ve experienced road rage as a response. I should say, I feel relatively safe trying this here. But I’m in the PNW where people are notoriously passive aggressive. But they seem perfectly happy to just “skip ahead” of me. But yeah I definitely could imagine a more aggressive response where I first learned to drive (DC metro).