What is Digg?526 Comments
- gds923, on 12/20/2007, -16/+465Was this really a mystery??
- cranium, on 12/20/2007, -6/+383This occurred to me one time when I was stuck on a freeway in Dallas.
1. We're not moving.
2. The guy in front of us is not moving, nor the guy in front of him.
3. If you look forward far enough, there has to be a first guy who is not moving.
4. Why the hell isn't he moving???? - Bawk, on 12/20/2007, -1/+277I'm going to keep blaming it on old people...
- misterpony, on 12/20/2007, -13/+243"the impact of unexpected events such as a lorry pulling out of its lane on a dual carriageway."
What? - YevS, on 12/20/2007, -11/+228Dugg to educate drivers who actually thought this was a mystery
- catullus13, on 12/20/2007, -1/+210I confess! It's me! I'm the guy at the head of the line holding things up. But there was a fender bender over on the shoulder that I just HAD to slow down to eyeball. Sorry!
- Flashman, on 12/20/2007, -4/+148This happens because drivers in traffic try to stay at an even distance from the car in front. The first driver brakes and slows by 5 miles per hour. The next driver reacts slightly later, and has to slow down by 8 miles per hour. The next has to slow by 10, and so on down the line, until somebody a dozen cars back has to slam on the brakes as the wave piles up.
- guinnessstout, on 12/20/2007, -2/+127This confirms my theory that traffic jams are caused by stupid ***** people that don't know how to drive. It would be nice if we could pass some laws, like say, you have to retake a driving test every 5 or 10 years.
- frostbyt, on 12/20/2007, -9/+126New rule!
If your retired you can not drive between the hours of 7am and 10am and 4:00pm and 7:00pm.
Stay home and watch a movie like the rest of us WISH we could do. - rix0r, on 12/20/2007, -0/+96Translations for you, my American friend:
Lorry: Like an 18 wheeler, but not quite as big, probably.
Dual carriageway: a road with two lanes going in either direction. - Gudlyf, on 12/20/2007, -5/+83Ah, I see now. This study says it was conducted in 2007. Obviously they meant 1907.
- jbmcb, on 12/20/2007, -2/+72I drive a bunch, and here's what I've noticed during rush hour(s) -
1 - People drive WAY too close to the cars in front of them. Leave at least two or three car lengths. I leave more than that.
2 - People switch lanes too often. During rush hour, it doesn't matter what lane you are in, everyone is going the same speed. Switching lanes just slows everyone else down. The only exception is getting on or off, or getting out of the right lane to let people get on the freeway.
3 - People wait until the last possible second to get into the exit lane. They'll rip along at top speed, then slam on the brakes with their turn signal on to get over. If you have to stop your car to get over, you've already missed your exit, keep going, turn around, and pay more attention next time. This infuriates me, there's an interchange on my way home that backs up for three to four MILES because people do this.
4 - There are people who will slow down for ANYTHING. If there's a tire on the side of the road they slam on their brakes. If the car next to them starts slowing down, they'll start slowing down. I'm pretty sure if they are listening to the radio and they play a slow song, they slow down. They do this because they are distracted and aren't paying attention to the road, so any stimulus of slowing down causes them to slow down. PAY ATTENTION TO THE FRIGGIN ROAD!!! - cactus476, on 12/20/2007, -1/+70People need to learn how to coast
- davewashere, on 12/20/2007, -2/+69Perhaps the cause of traffic jams is carriages on the freeway. Get off the road, Luddites!
- hadak, on 12/20/2007, -11/+62So...the mystery is....female drivers?
- epohs, on 12/20/2007, -0/+42The solution is, when you find yourself in stop and go traffic, slow to a speed that you can maintain without either being left by the cars in front of you, or running into their backs.
This will cause large gaps when the cars in front of you are moving, and you will close the gaps when they are stopped. But, you will maintain a steady speed. If all of the cars behind you would do the same, once you reach and pass the blockage you and all of the cars behind you would accelerate smoothly and the entire system would become unclogged.
It seems to make so much sense to me, but when I try it on the highway the cars behind me get really pissed off when there's a 50 yard gap, even though the car in front of me is at a complete stop 50 yards ahead.. - thcobbs, on 12/20/2007, -4/+44Does Digg HAVE to turn everything into something about Bush?
- Schmich, on 12/20/2007, -1/+41Well a lot of people lack common sense so I guess, for them, it was a mystery up till this memorable day!
Next up: "Why doesn't everyone in a lane/queue start moving as soon as the red light turns green? (at the same time)" - smedrick, on 12/20/2007, -0/+34It's a little more complicated than that, but yeah, that's the basic premise.
I don't know why this is news, though. I took a class back in college where we constructed traffic models based on fluid flow principles. Part of what makes the jam last so long is due to all the unnecessary lane-changing done by pricks who think they can get ahead of everyone else. - Archon810, on 12/20/2007, -4/+385. ...
6. profit? - Pssdoff, on 12/20/2007, -0/+33Speed 75 mph
Suddenly, speed of all cars in front of me reduces to 30 mph
5 minutes later speed slowly reduces to 25 mph
10 long minutes later, I slowly pass a cop on the side of the road doing nothing but sitting in his car.
1 minute later speed returns to 75 mph. The traffic jam has disappeared. - Dumbledorito, on 12/20/2007, -6/+38And, like all solutions to problems that require people to act in concert with each other, it will be ignored by those whose sense of self-importance is so large it reduces their MPG by five miles per gallon.
- Kallius, on 12/20/2007, -4/+35Nervous Nellies and USD's (unnecessarily slow drivers) are the cause of 90% of road congestion
- ClockworksNine, on 12/20/2007, -5/+34I still can't believe people never figured this out. Seriously, it is not difficult to use to common sense (I don't even know why it's called common sense if it isn't common).
- rkbabang, on 12/20/2007, -4/+29This has always pissed me off. Even if I'm 10 or 20 cars back I go as soon as the light changes, but I always have to stop again because the person in front of me hasn't started moving yet. This isn't a problem when I'm the 2nd car at the light, because the first car always goes as soon as the light changes and If I go also there is no delay. If I'm the 3rd+ car back I am delayed every time. People really are stupid sometimes.
Next study: Why do people stop at the end of an on-ramp to a highway when they clearly have their own lane that is long enough to get up to speed and merge in. Instead they stop there and think they are going to come up to highway speeds from a complete stop during a break in the traffic flow. This wouldn't bother me if it wasn't for the fact that I am often stopped behind such idiots and then I have to start from a complete stop after they go. ARGGGGGGHHHH ! I usually sit behind them and hold down my horn the entire time until they move. - MicrosoftBob, on 12/20/2007, -0/+25I'm going to keep blaming it on women...
- Archon810, on 12/20/2007, -1/+26Carriageway is the wave of the future, my friend. You just don't know it yet.
- Otto, on 12/20/2007, -0/+22Answer: The first guy is just starting to move because it's just starting to clear up in front of him. Whenever the car in front of you moves, there's a delay until you start to move. Add up that delay for each car all the way down the line, and you have how long you will have to wait.
If you could somehow make everybody move at the exact same time, then you could all move. But you can't. And even then, they'd all have to accelerate at the same speed to prevent banging into each other. - thetechkid, on 12/20/2007, -0/+21I've always wondered if theres a guy driving like 20MPH on the freeway that causes traffic jams.
- magnusdopus, on 12/20/2007, -0/+21I don't remember the study, must have been 5 or more years ago, but they came up with basically the same conclusion. The only way to improve traffic is have some kind of centralized speed control.
- jspegele, on 12/20/2007, -2/+22Exactly what I was thinking. I came to the same conclusion while sitting in traffic on the Long Island Expressway. I just never bothered (or knew how) to model it. Someone cuts you off, you hit the brakes, person behind you hits the brakes, etc, and bam you've got a traffic jam. Not exactly rocket science.
- michelspc, on 12/20/2007, -1/+2090% of the time that slow car is a Buick. That's all I'm saying.
- duke, on 12/20/2007, -0/+19Just a few minutes past Enterher.
- Otto, on 12/20/2007, -0/+19It's possible for one or two individuals to clear up a traffic jam quickly by the simple act of keeping their own traffic flow smooth. Next time you're in traffic, try this:
Keep a large amount of space between you and the next car. Several car lengths if possible. Then try to move at a constant speed, all the time. It'll be slow, just a creep, but you'll always be moving. This takes some practice, you have to gauge the average speed of the traffic flow over time and try to match it, and then leave enough buffer space so that you can stop if you have to. Yes, leaving that much buffer means that some dicks are going to enter your space. Ignore them and try to maintain the same speed without hitting them.
When you do this, you'll find that the movement seems to be slightly faster. Also, you can't see it, but behind you there will be a long line of continously moving cars after a while. And that line will all be moving at about the same speed. Cars to the sides will start doing the same thing after a while too, and the result is that the jam itself will clear up more quickly.
As an added bonus, other drivers may see what you're doing and emulate you at some point in the future. The more people there are trying to maintain constant average speeds will cause there to be fewer traffic jams, and those that do occur will not be nearly as bad.
Give it a shot. Hey, you're stuck in traffic, and it's more entertaining than sitting around doing nothing. - GvnMcCld, on 12/20/2007, -0/+18If you leave any space big enough (or not) for a car to fit into in front of you, some jackass is going to cut in and make you jam on your brakes anyhow. Basically, there is no way to stop traffic jams because everyone is thinking of themselves, not others.
- inactive, on 12/20/2007, -0/+18I don't know why you're getting dugg down. Similar research has been out since the early nineties. I know that I heard about this quite a while ago.
http://www.amasci.com/amateur/traffic/traffic1.htm ... - yojiffyskippy, on 12/20/2007, -0/+18"either direction" now that sounds dangerous.
- lazyeyesam, on 12/20/2007, -1/+18It's a town in the south west England.
- ucbluman, on 12/20/2007, -0/+17asian women. there i said it.
- FieldAnonymouse, on 12/20/2007, -4/+20Not to me. I had a computer model that demonstrated the first part of this (encountering a traffic jam and not finding any cause) quite accidentally. There's no mystery there. It was a pretty stupid model too. It's all because once traffic does start flowing again, not everyone starts moving exactly at the same time and at the same rate.
- inactive, on 12/20/2007, -2/+18No *****, we knew this 50 years ago.
- simplenation, on 12/20/2007, -0/+16Highway XXX sounds like a porn to me
- sgtbutterscotch, on 12/20/2007, -1/+16That doesn't seem to check out...what units are you using for traffic jams?
- inactive, on 12/20/2007, -0/+15We need cars that drive themselves.
- inactive, on 12/20/2007, -0/+15I wish I had Horse powers! I can just imagine myself leaping over low fences, grazing on golden oats on a whim, and =ahem= being hung like a stallion.
- hamburgers, on 12/20/2007, -0/+15I'm feeling a little ripped off. I discovered this years ago... along with the rest of the world
- britblogger, on 12/20/2007, -8/+23"Their model revealed that slowing down below a critical speed when reacting to such an event, a driver would force the car behind to slow down further and the next car back to reduce its speed further still."
did it really take a team of mathematicians to tell me this?
thanks Captain Obvious. - ChayD, on 12/20/2007, -0/+14Dual carriageway = 4 lane freeway (two lanes going one way and two going the other - often divided by a 'central reservation' = median)
- Speck, on 12/20/2007, -1/+15New rule!
If you don't know the difference between "your" and "you're" you should not be allowed to post on Digg ever again. - blackmage439, on 12/20/2007, -0/+13In other words, tailgaters, morons, and general ***** are the cause of unexplainable backups on the highway?
I could have told you that ten years ago, and I didn't even have my license yet! -
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