Depends on infrastructure and traffic conditions. My commute includes several on and off ramps that are routinely backed up somewhere between several blocks an

Depends on infrastructure and traffic conditions. My commute includes several on and off ramps that are routinely backed up somewhere between several blocks and several miles. If you are in line for the ramp, you can choose to A) maintain a gap no larger than one car-length between yourself and the car ahead of you or B) attempt to maintain a larger gap, only to have it immediately filled by people who were too important to join the back of the queue. In this case you are back to less than a one car-length gap, and the only thing you've accomplished is to annoy the people behind you by making space for queue jumpers. (You can of course repeat option B as many times as you like, until cars in queue behind you also start going around. I assume the end game is that you end up parked on the sidewalk or shoulder as traffic streams by.)