lol :) I was in a stand still traffic jam once, and got impatient and could not see what was causing it because the line was several kilometers. So I honked a few times, which is futile I did think as the car in front of you has nothing to do with it. But to my surprise the in front of me also honked, sending the honk to next car, and next car did the same and the entire cue sent the honk forward :) Right after the que started moving and we found out is was because of road work ahead. But it was really cool the cars forwarded the honk of frustration lol :)
Oh, how many times have I seen this. You are stuck in a traffic jam, you see in your navigator its end in a kilometer, you expect to see some terrible accident at the end, but... everyone just suddenly starts driving at normal speed.
I happened to me. I was stuck on 3 lane highway for 20 minutes just to see that idiots were busy looking at some parked cars with cops at the end. I couldn't believe how retarded the drivers were.
I happened to me. I was stuck on 3 lane highway for 20 minutes just to see everybody have been busy looking at some parked cars with cops at the end. I was really pissed because i was taking someone to train.
Had this happen once in Orlando. Finally managed to get past the vehicles in front and it was empty road. A traffic jam entirely caused by one person going too slow and presumably the cars on either side matching his speed instead of driving the speed limit.
I once saw a car get on the highway and cut across three lanes of busy traffic. Everyone had to do an emergency brake behind him and three lanes of traffic were stuck 10 seconds later.
A small under-powered car full of morbidly obese people merged into a 65mph zone at about 35mph directly into the left lane in front of me going 70mph as a teenager and almost got me and everyone behind me in the left lane killed. During rush hour no less. Some people..
@@theXR228 You're forgetting the third and most probable scenario that he is the person that cut across the highway and also happens to be Lewis Hamilton so it's quite earned to see it as a skill issue from his perspective.
And there are ways to reduce phantom jams, after they have been created. By slowing down and staying in motion as long as possible behind a traffic jam the bad stop and go can be stopped.
yea that works great until someone comes up behind you doing the speed limit, slams on their brakes, and the whole chain reaction starts all over again!
it’s crazy because it pops up today right after sitting in traffic for 20 minutes expecting an accident or something, come to find out someone had broken down all the way on the shoulder some people had just wanted to slow down to look at them
None of the people in this video are necessarily bad drivers. The test is _designed_ to cause a traffic jam. The primary issue is that they're packed too closely together (again, by design, to demonstrate that tailgating is bad). Prevent phantom traffic jams. Keep an even distance between the cars in front of and behind you. Brake gently and minimally.
exactly. When coming to a 'jam', slow down so that you are still moving then they move... it will prevent the people behind you from experiencing the same 'jam'. You wont ever feel that difference being the driver that stops the jam. You still see the slow down. But you can make driving better for the people behind you.
This makes perfects sense! I have noticed that when someone DOES leave a gap, there are people that RUSH to jump in and fill the gap just to then JAM on their brakes! I just wish I had a helicopter option on my car for those times....
I was thinking this too. Blows my mind that people will pull over 3 lanes AND slow down to 20-30 below the speed limit for a cop that has someone pulled over
@@dizzthenibbler4070 it's happened to me before where I thought the cop was busy attending the other guy he stopped, but then he instead chased after me
@@codyjohnson6427 that's just poor timing, and I'm talking about people who aren't speeding already, will still slow down. Like a 65 mph and ppl will be all the way over and doing 45.
@@dizzthenibbler4070 I get the whole getting into the next lane thing, just common courtesy. But I also can't stand it when people slam on their brakes as they pass the cop. Like, are you THAT scared behind the wheel?
Only takes one cockhead on his motorcycle to plug the safe gap between two vehicles which forces the rear car to brake, or even a car seeing the huge gap in front of a truck and not realizing the truck needs a greater distance to stop and thats why the gap exists
There are so many variables in this so no, that won't solve the problem, if you make all the vehicles with the same specs and are driven by a huge complex computer system, then that might work. Only way to achieve it is if all vehicles accelerates and decelerate at the exact same time with the same amount of acceleration and deceleration which is impossible to achieve if you put in the human factor and different vehicle specifications.
@@kamikeserpentail3778 nah I bet it would make the problem worse. More self driving cars = more cars on the road = more traffic, and inevitably traffic jams. The only real solution to traffic is better public transportation and urban planning
@@aRennix the traffic being caused by humans not driving smootly if all the cars were self-driving, and could tell each other what they were doing, traffic jams wouldnt happen
I had a place of work where, whenever someone had an anniversary, they would put food out on a circular table, gather everyone together, give a brief speech and then tell us to dig in. No matter how many times they did it, no matter how many times I tried to tell everyone that lines need a beginning and an end, people would still form a closed-loop and then wonder why nobody was moving. It says a lot about the caliber of people I was working with for sure.
You make a good point. I've never experienced that scenario, but I imagine upon discovering the solution to an annoying problem and finding yourself ignored, that it would really get under a person's skin.
In my experience, unless you continuously direct them to do otherwise, people will enter and exit from literally anywhere even on a straight table and cause chaos. Used to do catering/serving for small-medium weddings (50-150 guests) and even when we served from the buffet, people still had to be told sometimes to get in line at the end with the salad. Then you still had retards skipping the salad, getting served an entree, and then trying to *go backwards against the line* to get the salad. If it was self-serve, it was just a free-for all with less coordination than 100 pigs trying to feed from the same trough.
My challenge to myself in heavy traffic is to never touch my brakes. Keep a healthy following distance and release the gas when I see red in front of me. If I do it right, I’ll catch up to the car in front just as they’re starting to accelerate.
I do the same thing, keeps driving interesting. Makes it much easier being in a standard transmission. I don’t know if i could go back to automatic at this point
and this selfish, uncooperative behavior during rush hour results in multiple people missing light cycles by sending a wave of late starts at each intersection AND limiting top speed to well below speed limit, further limiting the flow of traffic behind you
@@fincarosa what youre referring to is called induced demand. A phenomenon in which more lanes work for a while before more and more people consider going by car filling it up again. That also got its limits cause at some point there arent any more people or cars. Its also less of a factor if good alternatives to the car exist. So in cases where roads are still clocked even though a good train, tram and metro exist an additional lane can solve that problem permanently. Thats a big factor in the US in addition to very cheap fuel.
@@fincarosa By this logic, reducing lanes wouldn't make traffic worse, but it does. More lanes does help, you absolute oaf. Just because it doesn't eliminate the problem to 0 doesn't mean it doesn't help
1-2 professional train conductors hauling dozens-hundreds of people at once > hundreds of people with different driving styles operating their own vehicles
@@samsonsson328 Yeah, the US isn't some tiny country, though. You can drive one or two hours in your country and end up in another country. Over here, a two-hour drive gets us in another county within the same state. We need personal transportation over here. We do have public transportation like buses and trains, but they're better suited for dense cities. We have areas in this country that are so sparse that a train system wouldn't be very feasible.
I always keep a larger gap so that I can keep moving without breaking. Then some fucking idiot moves into the gap I'm maintaining and causes the whole nicely moving lane to stop. If people just stayed in their own lanes, kept a reasonable distance, just let their foot off the accelerator to maintain the distance not the break, we'd all get to where we need to go!
If you have a larger gap, that means someone else must have a smaller gap. There is only so much space. Giving yourself more time to react is the same thing as giving someone behind you less time to react.
@timmiller1 In an artificial closed loop like this, that's true, but real roads aren't closed loops! The "2 second rule" was invented (like 50 years ago when there was 1/4 of the traffic on the roads) to prevent this situation: everyone drives with 2 seconds gap to the car in front, this allows for human reaction time and gives you the buffer space to use when someone in front makes a mistake or has to avoid/accommodate some unexpected obstruction -- they brake, you have to brake a little less, the car behind you a little less, ½ a mile further back the problem has gone and nobody knows anything happened, the road flows non-stop and everyone can enter the road as they need to (showing that "the road can only contain a certain number of cars" is a laughable spurious argument). If you drive close, as some do who use that ridiculous faulty argument ("you drive with a 'huge' gap, you prevent people getting on the road"), then when someone in front slows, you have to slow more, the one behind might have to touch the brakes, the one behind that brakes harder, ½ a mile further back it's a stationary jam and nobody else can enter the road possibly causing traffic jams on previous parts of the road network.
I watched a video like 10-15 years ago by some dude who claimed he solved this problem. All you gotta do is put a ton of space between you and the car in front of you, and try to maintain a consistent speed by watching the cars further ahead. The space acts as a kind of buffer that halts any waves of stopped cars rippling backwards. You don't necessarily get where you're going any faster, but it's much more engaging than just sitting in traffic, and you make the road better for everyone behind you. I drive like this now, and I've noticed another added benefit, which is people merging, usually to get off the highway. If it's bumper to bumper, you have to stop to let a car in if they want to merge into your lane, which further halts any traffic behind you. But if you've got a ton of space in front of you, people can merge as they please with little to no impact on you or the cars behind you. As long as I don't have anywhere to be, I absolutely love driving in traffic. It's way less boring, and it feels like I'm doing a service to everyone around me. I'm also far from the only person who does this, and it can be fun to encounter others. It's funny because if they're behind you, you end up in this almost oasis, where everyone to either side is bumper to bumper, but you've got like 50+ feet of empty road in front of and behind you lol
The problem is that the average space that can be between cars is the circumference of this circle divided by the number of cars. Meaning it is not possible for each of these cars to have enough distance to prevent jams.
I do the same. Big gap in front, and a constant slow roll, always watching not just the car in front of me but also 10+ cars down the line. So much nicer than gostopgostopgostopgostop every 3 seconds. And you get there in the same amount of time or better.
@@timmiller1thats true. Most people want to get ahead and will take that gap as a way to beat traffic, while others are oblivious to their tail gating.
I see this every day because I live on a high floor next to a major road. It always makes me have a fun time watching it go backwards. Sometimes the traffic is light enough that it resolves, but sometimes it never resolves. It's one of the biggest problems with human drivers in dense traffic, but artificial drivers are no better (yet).
Artificial drivers will sadly never be better enough for it to matter, as this is a factor moreso of traffic density than individual bad decisions. Even a perfect AI driver will have to brake slightly when someone else is merging in, and with perfect cohesion between cars that still creates a backward-propagating wave. If the distance between vehicles is too small, the wave will persist and interfere with other waves to create pockets of traffic.
@@deadcarbonboy just not braking when the car in front is braking then accelerating. So you can very well stop some waves if you have even a normal distance margin
@@este_marco that's what I'm saying, you can't not brake when the vehicle density is too high. Traffic is caused by number of cars on the road, not solely by bad drivers
@@deadcarbonboy 90% of ppl have a good margin to improve. i legit think useless traffic slow down can be outright removed from existence if we all learned and applied the good behaviors for good flowing traffic.
45 years ago they showed us videos that were exactly like this back when they were all on film strip, before VHS or any of that replaced eall of it, we saw lots of these examples in class. They were all pretty much the same and hasn't changed over the years. Japan had the best videos on the subject and the best studies that I saw.
The rise of US highways post-war actually created a counterargument all its own, so much that the UK began advocating against US urban development, which is entirely car-centric. So yes, this has been around for many decades already. Now it's 2024 and people complain that we didn't have the foresight to predict traffic, but we had all the information years ago. Everyone was just too shortsighted to acknowledge it wasn't the solution.
This is why following distance is key. With 4-6 car lengths of space you can ideally coast when you notice slower traffic. If you do need breaks or need to stop or behind a driver who overuses their breaks then add following distance or change lanes
Based on how recent all of these top comments are, I'm guessing the RUclips algorithm had another episode, and everybody randomly got reccomented this 12 year old video at around the same time
The slow reactions of setting off again also cause the propogation. The fact that everyone only seems to think about putting it in gear once the car that's already 5 metres away from them starts moving, is allowing the wave to keep going. If the vehicle in front of you is slowing down you should slow right down and aim to keep moving until you are about to have a crash, to smooth out the motion for the cars behind you
YES! Thank you, I was waiting for this comment. I believe you are exactly right. And, once stopped, you need immediately begin moving your car the moment that the car in front of you starts moving. Pay attention to the cars ahead of the car in front of you, so that you can time the beginning of your car's movement to precisely when the car in front of you starts moving.
@@tedz2usayep. You start moving with the car in front of the car thats in front of you only to have to press the brake again because the guy in front of you never started to move when he should have 😅
This thread is great advice if you wanna cause a rear-end in a traffic jam! 😂👍 Yes, in theory would remedy the problem, but in the real world it's extremely risky due to the unpredictable reactions of the driver in front. For instance they might feel pressured by your actions and choose irrational reactions like brake-checking you! But even without slow reacting and vengeance seeking drivers in front of you, this way of driving will quickly result in an accident, because it requires maximum alertness, extreme focus and lightning fast reactions, which will exhaust your mental resources in no time!
@@LRM12o8 the fact driving like this is considered an extreme level of alertness shows that most people shouldn't be on the road at all. Driving at any speed for any reason should require this level of attention.
We called it the slinky effect when hiking in the miltary. Our formation was determined by height, tall guys in front, short guys in back. Taller people having a longer stride would minimize this effect but it would still happen, resulting in lots of running instead of walking if you were in the back. The instructors made us swap order once so the tall guys would understand the importance of keeping a good pace and not stopping/slowing down.
I've always noticed in light traffic on freeways, even when there aren't "traffic jams", vehicles don't spread out. There are packs and voids. What happens is slower cars and large trucks are going at or lesser than the speed limit and form the front of the packs. Behind them are cars that would like to go faster but either adjust their speed to that speed, or are slowed until they can filter through to the front and then speed up to their normal pace, until get to the back of the next pack. These collections are usually about 20 car lengths or so in size with cars only separated by a few lengths, but the spaces between the packs can be enormous, like a quarter mile or half a mile. If you're driving a little over the average speed, you get through one of those packs, and for the next five minutes in the void, it's like you're the only one on the freeway. This would be solved by all semis only being in the rightmost one or two lanes, and the passing lane being left open just for passing. Unfortunately, literally everyone on the road thinks the speed they are going is the universal rule, and anyone that wants to go faster should go pound sand so they block the passing lane or drive anywhere they want.
Semis are already *technically* supposed to be and are required to be in the right lane when traveling and only use the left lanes when passing. An issue I've seen regularly is when a tractor can only reach 70 mph, and wants to pass several other vehicles, often other tractors, going 65. Results in a 4 minute long "Pass" in the passing lane. Major traffic jam. You're correct though, if people understood to stick to the rightmost lane any time there's space to do so, this would never really be an issue. They don't, for some reason, and that's why we can't have nice things.
@@KeterMalkuth You're both right except the Move Over Law only applies to freeways. It does not apply to any roads that have left turns. Semis and heavy trucks should be ticketed more for hogging the 3rd or 4th lane away from the left shoulder. No excuse for it. I've had Jeeps yell at me, pass me while I'm going 10 over, Pass me really close to rubbing my back quarter just to cut me off with their right signal on, so going 20+ over the limit. This is on a two lane *residential* area lol. I just honk at them when they run up close like that and show them my left signal, as I am turning left! Also I never drive close to or beside other people, so they have zero reason to harass me like that.
Where I live, we call the event of trucks ignoring the keep right rule and slowly passing eachother "elephant races" It's the end of any 2-lane speedway
@@KeterMalkuth I remember I once saw a semi try to pass another semi in the right lane. He crept along, taking 3 business days to get alongside the other guy, only to lose his momentum or whatever and just end up going the exact same speed as the truck in the right lane for like 4 miles. Backed up a lot of traffic behind him with that stunt lol
Sad life. Let’s all take buses and trains and relax and never have to worry about traffic again (if we all stop driving and use higher capacity alternatives, the traffic is gone)
The biggest issue that i can assume that causes this is when a car in front of you appears to slow down, some people will break more than the person in front. When breaking your distance between the car in front of you should be constant and not increasing
A cure to this is start moving when the 2nd car infront of you starts moving. Ofcouse stop tailgating but that entails people not using the space to cut lanes. Maybe a laser projector that just warns anyone from cutting infront of you by marking the space in red. It also lets you know if youre tailgating(sometimes i forget and be back by only 2 cars whereas i should be back by 3). Also introduce micro fines using camera and AI technology, eg lane cutting just to join a faster lane and not go towards an exit or not coming in from an entry should be fined .25 cents automatically. Going slow on the fast lane, 10 cent per 3 miles. Not breaking away from a Wolfpack, 1 cent per mile, drafting too close, 2 cent per mile. Etc. we got the technology to solve this. Maybe try this on two expressway lanes on the highway first. Also maybe some sort of scheduling notification system that says "Hey according to your calender you're selected to be part of traffic group 3.30(the time) you should leave within 10 mins to join your group. Yea you can skip this if you want but maybe you dont get access to the expressway lanes like i mentioned before. Also obv autopilot syncing. That automatically collectively controls flow of traffic. You'll see all the tech i mentioned get inevitably get implemented. But i feel like by then we'll have teleportation.
that micro fines thing is the goofiest shit i'm so sorry. i get what you're trying to say but this is not worth it. we do not have the infrastructure for that. cars will drive themselves within our lifetimes anyways. besides, would you like us to live a dystopian reality where cameras individually track every person driving and cost them money for not being robots?
@@scubasteve6175 might just be the cameras in your car that do it for you. Again, it would be voluntary. You can just choose to not use the expressway lanes like I mentioned.
@@pineappleparty1624 it does. That distance allows smooth slowing down and speeding up. Allows time for correcting the jam. Tailgating makes harsher slow downs and a even harsher chain reaction.
On busy roads, with more than one lane, this is often caused by people signalling and pulling out without checking space, forcing those in the lane to brake suddenly. Or those in the lane slowing to let someone pull out. In a single carriage roads, simply over braking, not keeping to a constant speed, and everyone doing that at different times. Yes I can cruise at 40, 50 or 60 mph, but naturally I may sometimes be a few mph quicker or slowers based on curves in road or hills, and if the person behind me has a car that manages slightly different to mine the gap closes. Additionally it is caused by someone keeping to the speed limit, or safe speed, and the person behind going the 2%+2 over the speed limit, or slightly faster than what the other considers a safe speed for the road/conditions. All of these contribute to these phantom traffic jams. Like they say, everyone drives slightly differently, and that causes the queue. Not tailgating, as trying not to tailgate means slowing down. These traffic jams are rarely caused by a normal driver/vehicle going ridiculously under the speed limit. But many seem to think that they must always drive at the speed limit, which is why around where I live - mainly country roads with the derestricted sign, many take the corners too fast and end up in ditches as they don't drive for road, they drive for the speed. Yes, it is annoying when I know I can safely go 50 (sometimes 60) on a section of the road, but as they are usually short sections staying at 40 behind someone adds seconds to my journey not minutes.
On Motorways there are always morons who hog the middle lane and refuse to change lanes, so when you are in a lane approaching a slower vehicle, you have to pull into the middle lane cause the lane hog to break and then others behind to break which causes phantom traffic jams
@starlight122012 how to say you didn't read my comment without saying you didn't read my comment. This my comment was nothing about lane hogging, get a life. STOP HARASSING ME.
@@tkralva.6668 How is one reply harassing you, you silly snowflake? You mentioned a road with more than one lane, maybe be more specific on that, because that is ambiguous. My comment is still valid regarding lane changes due to not enough space, yes I did read your comment.
Same for traffic lights. A lot of the time, the first car starts driving, then the second, then the third. But if just everyone would start driving at the same time, the line would move as a whole.
The way to help avoid becoming the problem is by maintaining a consistent distance away from the car two cars ahead. If they’re driving smooth you can stay smooth. If the car in front of you is inconsistent, you’ll be protecting the cars behind from their slow/fast driving
Spent 45 minutes in a jam the other day, that went for about 2 kilometers. At the end...nothing. Went from 5 kmh back to the 100 speed limit and I was fuming.
Another thing that causes traffic congestion is when there is a queue of cars waiting for the green traffic light, the light goes green and everybody moves off 1 at a time rather than all going at once. It doesn't matter if youre the first car in the queue or the tenth, all vehicles should move once the green light shows.
@@Stratus41298 true but highways cost 10x to maintain with no revenu to offset the costs of damage from overloaded modern vehicles that weighs in at almost 2 ton when empty.( ps this is a north american thing). So for long distance travel like a 4+hour long trip the train should be the main way. But for short distance travel a car or other means like a bike or tram/bus. Lets build society for humans again not just long distance cars.
Yeah, no matter which way you look at it, individual vehicles for personal transport are worse for society overall AND for individuals. A car-based society is a monstrous drain on society; walkable and bikeable cities with public transport have much less space wasted on roads and parking lots/spaces, are much quieter, have much lower road costs, much lower overall costs for individuals who don't need to own and maintain their own cars...
Here in Brazil, some areas where its common for people to drive over the speed limit the traffic guys in plain clothes create the phantom jam on weekends and holidays to diminish the collisions.
I wish we could redo this experiment with the instructions for the drivers to do their best to keep the same distance to the car in front as the car in back
If you want to get rid of this. Drive an equal distance from the driver behind and in front. Keep your speed regular. Mimetic while get rid of this traffic faster than you can even believe.
That's all fine and dandy. Except the guy behind me really, really wants to see what color upholstery my seats are. And whenever you keep a safe distance an opportunist will plunge his metal death contraptio right in front of yours. If your solution is "things would be perfect if everyone would just do X", then it's going to fail in advance because people are selfish assholes.
@@EnterJustice no, it's not a requirement for everyone to do X. it works as a rule for the individual driver, and if everyone individually did this at the same time, we would have a fully cooperative flow of traffic. it is like saying the economy will collapse because people steal. yes, thieves negatively affect the economy, but people still pay rather than just throwing their hands in the air saying it will never work. so you are reading it wrong and you are saying might as well steal since some guy next to me is doing it. and yes, you will get ahead, stealing or cutting traffic, but it's not cooperative like paying for stuff. you still pay for stuff, yes? so this rule is a way to drive that potentially mitigates phantom traffic jams. possibly less accidents, less wasteful acceleration/braking. but i am not saying this solves everything. because phantom traffic jams arent real anyway. they are usually real traffic jams caused by a bottleneck in front. so that is why cutting is actually effective if you want to cheat. the example of using a phantom traffic jam is a faulty one. it implies real bottlenecks are just your imagination and that your commute to and from work are caused by phantom traffic jams. but for the video about phantom ones, this rule actually will prevent it.
@@EnterJustice another driver getting into that gap is not a problem. Just add more space. That's not a valid reason to tailgate at all. There is no limit to how many cars can merge into a lane if they are traveling at the correct speed
@@TitanFlaresomeone hasn’t driven in a city. If you leave a car length, someone is going to take that. Sure then you ease off the speed, the person behind you breaks, another car jumps in front of you. Now you have to slow down even more. And the person behind you will have to brake even more. This happens, and it’s not preventable. It just depends on the drivers that happens to be around you whether they act appropriately or not, not exclusively on your actions as an individual
It’s like to point out something critical , that people NEED to realize while in a traffic jam the best thing you can do is move slowly allow space to open up in front of you and to not just immediately change lanes or speed up to fill the space. Patience ends the traffic jam. Aggressive lane changes and taking space worsens it.
I thought i wouldnt like road engineering when I first started my degree, but seeing the role that psychology and sociology play in this field got me hooked
Sometimes I wish driving licenses would be as hard to obtain as is a pilots license. Would keep the idiots off the road. Most people are completely unaware of their surroundings...
I think at the very least we should require drivers tests to be retaken at regular intervals. Say every 2 years or so. It’s crazy that you take your test once as a teen and never again.
@@Bromon655 Even if you've had zero accidents or traffic tickets or anything? Maybe we should all go back to high school, too. I'm sure we've forgotten all the Math and English we learned 20 years ago. 🤷
What I wonder is can this be fixed? If one driver starts driving slow enough that he never actually needs to stop for the jam then the jam would eventually be solved until it happens again, right? To elaborate: what I mean is that the guy in front of you is driving normally, when he reaches the jam he has to slow down and eventually stop because the person in front of him did so. You see him slowing down to a stop but you're going slow enough that by the time you reach him, he has already started moving again. Now you have never had to stop and all the people behind you didn't have to stop either because they had to match your speed, after the guy in front of you starts going you simply match his speed and now there's no jam (until it happens again).
I know how to fix this. What if you just connected all the cars together and made them run on a designated schedule and stop at specific locations, no traffic jams!
You could make it produce less pollution by having it run off electricity from some kind of over head wires. Then make it more efficient and produce less micro plastics using metal rails!
Trains wouldn't suffer from this problem, because they can be scheduled and coordinated. And all you need in order to sort out thr scheduling is a guy who knows how to use Microsoff Excel. Unfortunately, the ministry of transport is severely lacking in people experienced enough to know how to turn on a laptop.
It's not just being scheduled, it's the absolutely staggering capacity. A high efficiency freeway lane carries 2400 people per hour when free flowing, which drops precipitously when there's a jam - easily lower than 1000. A 6 car train can carry 1500 fairly easily, and carries exactly the same amount when over capacity. Run 15 of those an hour and that's more capacity than a perfectly flowing 9 lane each way freeway.
@@Freezorgium 1) You get off the train at the next stop, have your burger at a restaurant nearby, go back to the station get on the next train, which you'll only have to wait a few minutes for if your trains have decent frequency. 2) You don't visit your aunt on a whim. You plan it at least a day ahead of time. Nobody wants a random visit without warning. But if your aunt does live nearby, you could get off the train at the stop closest to her home and take transit and/or a bike/scooter the rest of the way. If she doesn't, plan ahead, or drive (rent, or use a car you don't have to rely on for everyday trips because you have competent infrastructure)
@@Freezorgiumget off, walk like 3 minutes tops to a burger place, walk back, get on, get off, take a bus to your aunt, take a bus back, get on, get off, take a bus home
It helps to keep a decent distance to the driver in front of you, who just cant hold speed and goes between 70 and 100 kmh all the time. Keep some distance, get a permanent speed like 85 kmh. This saves you nerves and petrol and it wont cause traffic jam behind you.
No, the only way to make this work is to keep as close to the driver in front as you can. That way you will give space to the one behind you, so he can go faster as well, and so on..
Well, the "truth" is actually somewhere between the two extremes. Obviously we all perceive danger and thus the comfortable distance between us and the car in front of us differently. I have to admit, I'm on the offensive side, probably keeping too short a distance for many people. Obviously it's different based on speed, the surroundings, the traffic and not to mention, whether it's city or highway driving. I've never rear ended anybody, even though I've had a few close ones (usually when somebody was "cautiously" starting to break way sooner than was necessary, like, coming to a red light, they'd basically slow down almost to a halt almost 100 meters before the already stopped cars). One other thing to note, when I drive like that (which is almost always), I'm almost hyper aware, fully invested in the act of driving but that for me is normal, a no brainer and the way it should be. I think too many of us value being comfortable and relaxed while driving over safety and alertness. I said safety, I know, but bear with me. At least we can probably agree most people don't want to have to be hyper aware as if they are driving a realy race, being that alert to everything makes us more tired and driving is already tiring enough. Ok, but why did I say people choose that over safety? Because I (and I'd think most professional drivers) truly believe only way to drive safely is to be fully alert. So anything where you're not as alert as if you're in a race (not racing per se, but driving a bit more agressive, while still being defensive because you just have to read other drivers around you - not sure how exactly they call it, but motorcycle drivers have to drive that way) is just not safe driving. One example that happens to me waaaay too often to be just a coincidence: as I also have these things called blinkers (amazingly, they came with the base model, at no additional charge! I know - bonkers!) and I actually know how to use them, coming to a fork, I will signal lane turn waaaay before the car in front of me and I will actually make my move, already be "overtaking" them when they "decide" to do the same, only turning blinkers moments before the lane change and mirror check. Since that's the moment they realize someone is already in their newly chosen part, they will kind of jerk(?) the wheel back to their lane, all surprised. Now, you may argue they are just bad drivers and I wouldn't debate you, but I'd say they look awful lot like a "normal careful driver" and I look like the unpatient "mad" driver. And unpatient I am, unpatient for them to start driving and stop doing whatever they were doing. But in their eyes I was the one "speeding" and they were "driving carefully, i.e. slow". It's just that they also thought they're all alone in the traffic. :) EDIT: Don't worry, since I always expect them to do that, I usually slow down and flash to signal to them to make the lane change in front of me. Only way I don't do that is when I see nobody closely behind me and I realize they'll have plenty of time to make the lane change after I pass them. And I will pass them quickly, not like they would "stall" in that situation if it were reversed. Funny enough, never had that happen to me where I could have a chat with that person afterwards to really pick their brain and find out what they thought.
This is the basis of congestion pricing. By keeping road sections at just below its operational capacity at certain speed, traffic jams magically disappear
If only people were taught to start moving at the same time, especially at traffic lights. When the vehicle at the front starts moving, everyone should then start moving at the same time instead of one by one. This would improve traffic flow during rush hour greatly.
It somewhat depends on CC. Older units are a simple throttle position lock without any radar or lidar in front and most disengage under certain speed, so you have to keep an eye and manually correct. More consistent yes, but if a driver is bad at driving then even tech will have trouble countering it.
That won't help because even if the people in the test were driving the same car model they won't be able able to engage cruise control precisely at the same time which will gradually cause the phantom jam. As humans we have different reaction times and responses to any given situation.
Has nothing to do with keeping the same speed. Speed WILL fluctuate no matter what. But if people didn't tailgate, the fluctuations would ebb to nothing
This happens with multiple lanes too. It's usually 2 cars driving next to one another who are completely complacent. Neither is committed to passing the other and both are driving slower than average traffic (even if only by a little). This can often create a Phantom "One Lane Only" scenario where only 1 open lane is flowing freely and the other tow lanes are trying to cram into it to move past the blockage resulting in that lane getting clogged up too, especially when another slow person gets in there and takes their sweet time passing. This happens the most when 1 large truck tries to pass another and either won't or straight up can't overtake fast enough. All of this is even worse on uneven highways with hills where a person is maintaining a specific constant pressure on their gas pedal, resulting in them going faster and then slower and then faster again with the inclines of the terrain, meanwhile the people behind them trying to maintain a constant specific speed instead have to keep making unwanted adjustments to their speed to avoid collisions in front of them or holding up others behind them (while under frustration 😅)
It would also help if people drove at least max 5 over the speed limit. Fluctuating speed is what causes bunching up. But if someone driving 4 over the speed limit is causing you to bunch up you are the problem imo
When you got a slow person in the right lane ahead then another slow person synched up in the left lane, who won’t pass or speed up so everyone stuck behind them gets bottlenecked. It always has to happen when you’re running late or in a hurry too. Very frustrating
1. Don't over-brake or be stopped longer than you need to. 2. Watch the car ahead of the car in front of you, and attempt to start moving forward when they do. 3. Eliminate lag. 3. The harder you accelerate, the slower you'll have to brake when you catch up. 4. Strive for slow continuous motion.
Eliminating lag and watching the car in front you to go at the same time is impossible. The average person is physiologically too unintelligent to conceptualize a simple system like this. Their brains are literally incapable of producing thoughts that complex.
If everyone maintained good distance so they need to use their brakes and just the car roll at an optimal speed to main good spacing their would be no jam
What you really desire is for all of us to have the same brain, same aptitude and abilities, same reflexes and same driving preferences. Not possible. :) We'd need to give up driving to the cars to come even near that (again, different manufacturers might still have slightly differently behaved AIs) and I for one welcome that future. Humans just aren't cut out for dull everyday driving and that's it.
@@ddelimardriving a car is hardly a task that requires any sort of extraordinary abilities. The problem is there are too many fuckin idiots in this world. Idiots who can’t do anything right
@@jakub.kubicek I love trains, but commuting and travelling can't be left with only one mode of transport. Many cities don't have rail infrastructure so to get somewhere after you travel with train, there needs to be a way to just use roads. Self driving taxis, car/bike sharing and that last mile solutions like electric scooters are in our future (actually, electricity is what all of them will be powered by ;)).
No, the number of cars is the cause of the problem. No one can drive efficiently when there is a small gap, and there must be small gaps if there are too many vehicles for the given space.
Seriously tho. The German driving school is already on average 7 months long, and the road experience is generally much better here than anywhere else, but this still needs to be part of the mandatory theory classes
in the United States we have do not tailgate laws. If you follow somebody more than one car length per every 10 Mi an hour you are going, then by definition that's tailgating. the fine is often a reckless driving charge. It is enforced very often but Americans are really really ignorant and assume that 75% of the tickets given are for speeding, when in reality they are more often written for other infractions. Tailgating is often writen up as wreckless driving. for things like that. Speeding is a very common ticket here as we have less disputable methods of determining speed then we do enforcement of tailgating proof, but if you go to an american traffic court as I used to have to do for my job, You should observe really quickly that the vocalizations on the street about what police enforce are different than common asumption. often times when people get charged with an offense for a particular crime they are put into a courtroom where other people are charged with similar crimes so that the judge can be properly educated on that crime before he makes judgment on those people. so sometimes when people go to traffic court themselves to pay a ticket they assumed that that's all they write tickets for because everybody in that courtroom that day was pulled over for that or a similar crime because that's the day the police officer took off so he could go to court to affreas those people. people think cops know the law so that they're looking for legally infractions when in reality cops don't know the law otherwise they wouldn't take a job where they get their asses kicked and get shot at for a living. Some people say that most tickets are for speeding because they never go to court to find out what most tickets are for chargthat they are passing could possibly be writing a ticket for. but Americans are all to willing to spread rumor based on their own ignorance and assumption rather than verified fact.
I love how the video shows the inevitability of traffic jams and people in the comments all started blaming bad drivers. The system is flawed, blaming individuals won’t get us anywhere.
@@pineappleparty1624 building trains would cause less traffic, its pretty easy to understand that public transportation causes less traffic. Not the additional lanes they build.
If we don’t do something soon in 27.3 years there will be so many idiots in cars the roads will just be cars sitting still bumper to bumper, no one moving an inch. Raise the driving age, take away elderly licenses and give harsher penalties to fkn idiots and dui drivers
The circle sets the following distance more than anything, not the number of people. For all intents and purposes, a real freeway is practically infinite. So the number of people isn't an issue, it's the following distance
Same with starting from lights. If everyone start at the same time - even 2-3 times more cars can go through. If people are looking into phones or fixing makeup and start sequentially - you get jams too
The safe speed is related to how close cars are following. Reduced speed also compresses traffic reducing safe speed further. Roads tend to jam up when their optimum capacity is exceeded. The experience can be improved by dampening rather than amplifying the stop-starts.
but the guy at the top right just full stopped for like a solid 5 seconds at :31. test is bogus, but the concept still applies and has been proven before.
I don't think the test was bogus at all. This wasn't testing our ability to drive in circle with friends with whom we agreed the speed prior to drive. :) Even if the stop was induced, it still shows what happens in normal traffic. Think about it. All that's needed for this fanthom traffic jam to occur is one of the following: somebody slows down to deal with something (phone, another person, anything), somebody behind them, not expecting change in pace slams the brakes a bit more and the next person (if close enough) has to almost halt to a full stop - welcome to a fanthom traffic jam, it can now make dozens and dozens if vehicles to have to stop for no apparent reason. So really, the reason why the first car had to slow down is irrelevant really, this happens way more than you'd think. The first car doesn't even have to full stop, just drive slower than surrounding traffic. Say, try to be "more careful" in traffic, but really just being kind of bad drivers.
Test isn't bogus, the one guy just stopping for no reason at the front and creating the jam is what happens in the real world. It's a perfect simulacrum because it takes away all possible noise and just spits out "yeah jams happen because the person at the front decided to just stop or slow down such a significant amount that it blows up the highway behind them"
Did they try honking
lol :) I was in a stand still traffic jam once, and got impatient and could not see what was causing it because the line was several kilometers. So I honked a few times, which is futile I did think as the car in front of you has nothing to do with it. But to my surprise the in front of me also honked, sending the honk to next car, and next car did the same and the entire cue sent the honk forward :) Right after the que started moving and we found out is was because of road work ahead. But it was really cool the cars forwarded the honk of frustration lol :)
@@a64738basically a long line of fuck yous.
@@a64738 you've got mail, lol
😊
Omg...😂 much underrated comment. That's made me lol out loud
Oh, how many times have I seen this. You are stuck in a traffic jam, you see in your navigator its end in a kilometer, you expect to see some terrible accident at the end, but... everyone just suddenly starts driving at normal speed.
its some asshole that can't drive. thats the moral of the story. press the right pedal and gtfo of the way.
I happened to me. I was stuck on 3 lane highway for 20 minutes just to see that idiots were busy looking at some parked cars with cops at the end. I couldn't believe how retarded the drivers were.
I happened to me. I was stuck on 3 lane highway for 20 minutes just to see everybody have been busy looking at some parked cars with cops at the end. I was really pissed because i was taking someone to train.
WHAT IN TARNATION IS A KILOMETER, USE FREEDOM MILES PATRIOT, YEEHAW!🫡🇺🇸🦅 *star spangled banner playing in the background*
Had this happen once in Orlando. Finally managed to get past the vehicles in front and it was empty road. A traffic jam entirely caused by one person going too slow and presumably the cars on either side matching his speed instead of driving the speed limit.
I once saw a car get on the highway and cut across three lanes of busy traffic. Everyone had to do an emergency brake behind him and three lanes of traffic were stuck 10 seconds later.
A small under-powered car full of morbidly obese people merged into a 65mph zone at about 35mph directly into the left lane in front of me going 70mph as a teenager and almost got me and everyone behind me in the left lane killed. During rush hour no less. Some people..
Skill issue
@@JB-uk7mn You’re either the person who cut across the highway or an eight year old
@@theXR228 You're forgetting the third and most probable scenario that he is the person that cut across the highway and also happens to be Lewis Hamilton so it's quite earned to see it as a skill issue from his perspective.
@@squatchjosh1131 public roads/highways are not the race tracks.
And there are ways to reduce phantom jams, after they have been created.
By slowing down and staying in motion as long as possible behind a traffic jam the bad stop and go can be stopped.
And it helps in not getting rear ended :)
The problem with that is that some people change lanes abruptly and some even force their way in, causing traffic to never flow smoothly
I'm doing my part!
yea that works great until someone comes up behind you doing the speed limit, slams on their brakes, and the whole chain reaction starts all over again!
Oh hey, that's what i do!
I love how this is just in everyone’s recommended 11 years later. See y’all again when this appears In our recommend 3 years later.
Lol.
it’s crazy because it pops up today right after sitting in traffic for 20 minutes expecting an accident or something, come to find out someone had broken down all the way on the shoulder some people had just wanted to slow down to look at them
was thinking about this video a few months back then it came back like ol reliable
4 days
Sounds like a plan man, see you then! Lmao
None of the people in this video are necessarily bad drivers. The test is _designed_ to cause a traffic jam. The primary issue is that they're packed too closely together (again, by design, to demonstrate that tailgating is bad).
Prevent phantom traffic jams. Keep an even distance between the cars in front of and behind you. Brake gently and minimally.
That would work if assholes didn't hog the Middle Lane of a motorway. Those are the people who create traffic jams
exactly. When coming to a 'jam', slow down so that you are still moving then they move... it will prevent the people behind you from experiencing the same 'jam'. You wont ever feel that difference being the driver that stops the jam. You still see the slow down. But you can make driving better for the people behind you.
Well, you can control the distance between you and the car in front, but there's nothing you can do about the car behind.
They drove too fast.
This makes perfects sense! I have noticed that when someone DOES leave a gap, there are people that RUSH to jump in and fill the gap just to then JAM on their brakes!
I just wish I had a helicopter option on my car for those times....
When people see a cop and suddenly everybody slows down
I was thinking this too. Blows my mind that people will pull over 3 lanes AND slow down to 20-30 below the speed limit for a cop that has someone pulled over
ON THE OTHER SIDE IF A DIVIDED HIGHWAY!!
@@dizzthenibbler4070 it's happened to me before where I thought the cop was busy attending the other guy he stopped, but then he instead chased after me
@@codyjohnson6427 that's just poor timing, and I'm talking about people who aren't speeding already, will still slow down.
Like a 65 mph and ppl will be all the way over and doing 45.
@@dizzthenibbler4070 I get the whole getting into the next lane thing, just common courtesy. But I also can't stand it when people slam on their brakes as they pass the cop. Like, are you THAT scared behind the wheel?
Don't know why 12years later the algorithm brought me here. However, the most visually informative video i have watched today. 😁
Drivers should stop tailgating and that would solve some of the problem.
Only takes one cockhead on his motorcycle to plug the safe gap between two vehicles which forces the rear car to brake, or even a car seeing the huge gap in front of a truck and not realizing the truck needs a greater distance to stop and thats why the gap exists
Or nobody should go to a stand still
and slow drivers should drive faster. both equal problems. Both cause death and traffic.
There are so many variables in this so no, that won't solve the problem, if you make all the vehicles with the same specs and are driven by a huge complex computer system, then that might work. Only way to achieve it is if all vehicles accelerates and decelerate at the exact same time with the same amount of acceleration and deceleration which is impossible to achieve if you put in the human factor and different vehicle specifications.
Yep and waiting n g till last min to exit cut people off
You're not stuck in a traffic jam.
You ARE the traffic jam.
-Sorry boss, looks I'll be a few minutes late coming in.
-Why? What's happened?
-I'm a traffic jam.
As dum as the politician that said it.
@@tynewlin💀
In the US we added these cool toll lanes that take up half of every other highway and create phantom traffic jams at every merging lane :))))))
I HATE those lanes. Just a money grab that only provides chaos.
stupid states that haven't gone 100% pay by plate yet 🤦♂️
If you live in a terrible place, sure.
@@rawman44 You mean all of California? Well, i guess that does count, actually.
Well our government has to take our money to give to Ukraine and Israel somehow
The year is 2024 and nothing has changed
Still waiting on self-driving cars.
I bet computers could do it better
They can but it taking a lot longer than we thought. Then you have to consider mass production and affordability.
@@kamikeserpentail3778 nah I bet it would make the problem worse. More self driving cars = more cars on the road = more traffic, and inevitably traffic jams. The only real solution to traffic is better public transportation and urban planning
It will never change unless every car is self driving. This is just human behavior.
@@aRennix the traffic being caused by humans not driving smootly
if all the cars were self-driving, and could tell each other what they were doing, traffic jams wouldnt happen
I had a place of work where, whenever someone had an anniversary, they would put food out on a circular table, gather everyone together, give a brief speech and then tell us to dig in. No matter how many times they did it, no matter how many times I tried to tell everyone that lines need a beginning and an end, people would still form a closed-loop and then wonder why nobody was moving. It says a lot about the caliber of people I was working with for sure.
You make a good point. I've never experienced that scenario, but I imagine upon discovering the solution to an annoying problem and finding yourself ignored, that it would really get under a person's skin.
You could have roundabouts with multiple entries and exits ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
In my experience, unless you continuously direct them to do otherwise, people will enter and exit from literally anywhere even on a straight table and cause chaos.
Used to do catering/serving for small-medium weddings (50-150 guests) and even when we served from the buffet, people still had to be told sometimes to get in line at the end with the salad. Then you still had retards skipping the salad, getting served an entree, and then trying to *go backwards against the line* to get the salad. If it was self-serve, it was just a free-for all with less coordination than 100 pigs trying to feed from the same trough.
@@aleshandsome3705they do, that's not the point
If there's free food involved, I think our brain goes "gimme gimme gimme" and all logic goes out the window.
My challenge to myself in heavy traffic is to never touch my brakes. Keep a healthy following distance and release the gas when I see red in front of me. If I do it right, I’ll catch up to the car in front just as they’re starting to accelerate.
I do the same thing, keeps driving interesting. Makes it much easier being in a standard transmission. I don’t know if i could go back to automatic at this point
@@mikeoxhard3826 My Mazda has fake manual shifting, so I can do a little bit of engine breaking. Wish I had a manual sometimes.
and this selfish, uncooperative behavior during rush hour results in multiple people missing light cycles by sending a wave of late starts at each intersection AND limiting top speed to well below speed limit, further limiting the flow of traffic behind you
@@lilarrin1220 I do this on freeways; not surface streets. Hope you have a good Memorial Day weekend. I didn’t mean to get you worked up.
@@lilarrin1220 you really didn't understand anything about the experiment in the video did you ?
Great to see this in real life and not just in a computer simulation!
This is computers for old people.
:D
Cities Skylines if it were actually good :D
See this everyday on my commute, dude…
@@JB-uk7mnYou drive to work by going on a circular path?
@@elmojackson6621 you are retarded bro
"Just one more lane bro"
But this actually helps... More lanes means fewer cars per lane
A second lane and no traffic jam wouldve formed in this case.
No, the OP is correct. Traffic expands to fill additional lanes. That's why road construction has never solved traffic jams
@@fincarosa what youre referring to is called induced demand. A phenomenon in which more lanes work for a while before more and more people consider going by car filling it up again. That also got its limits cause at some point there arent any more people or cars. Its also less of a factor if good alternatives to the car exist. So in cases where roads are still clocked even though a good train, tram and metro exist an additional lane can solve that problem permanently. Thats a big factor in the US in addition to very cheap fuel.
@@fincarosa By this logic, reducing lanes wouldn't make traffic worse, but it does. More lanes does help, you absolute oaf. Just because it doesn't eliminate the problem to 0 doesn't mean it doesn't help
shout out to the black car on the top right for having a reaction time so slow it causes everything
Driving, the one and only thing we expect everyone to do perfectly all the time
TRAINS
WHERE?
Exactly that’s what I’m saying
1-2 professional train conductors hauling dozens-hundreds of people at once > hundreds of people with different driving styles operating their own vehicles
@@samsonsson328 Yeah, the US isn't some tiny country, though. You can drive one or two hours in your country and end up in another country. Over here, a two-hour drive gets us in another county within the same state. We need personal transportation over here. We do have public transportation like buses and trains, but they're better suited for dense cities. We have areas in this country that are so sparse that a train system wouldn't be very feasible.
That’s why I always try to maintain a slower speed in a traffic jam to ensure the people behind me don’t have to break
Yes, I try to avoid this by keeping a little longer distance to car in front and only slow down slowly.
I always keep a larger gap so that I can keep moving without breaking. Then some fucking idiot moves into the gap I'm maintaining and causes the whole nicely moving lane to stop. If people just stayed in their own lanes, kept a reasonable distance, just let their foot off the accelerator to maintain the distance not the break, we'd all get to where we need to go!
its brake
If you have a larger gap, that means someone else must have a smaller gap. There is only so much space. Giving yourself more time to react is the same thing as giving someone behind you less time to react.
@timmiller1 In an artificial closed loop like this, that's true, but real roads aren't closed loops! The "2 second rule" was invented (like 50 years ago when there was 1/4 of the traffic on the roads) to prevent this situation: everyone drives with 2 seconds gap to the car in front, this allows for human reaction time and gives you the buffer space to use when someone in front makes a mistake or has to avoid/accommodate some unexpected obstruction -- they brake, you have to brake a little less, the car behind you a little less, ½ a mile further back the problem has gone and nobody knows anything happened, the road flows non-stop and everyone can enter the road as they need to (showing that "the road can only contain a certain number of cars" is a laughable spurious argument). If you drive close, as some do who use that ridiculous faulty argument ("you drive with a 'huge' gap, you prevent people getting on the road"), then when someone in front slows, you have to slow more, the one behind might have to touch the brakes, the one behind that brakes harder, ½ a mile further back it's a stationary jam and nobody else can enter the road possibly causing traffic jams on previous parts of the road network.
I watched a video like 10-15 years ago by some dude who claimed he solved this problem. All you gotta do is put a ton of space between you and the car in front of you, and try to maintain a consistent speed by watching the cars further ahead. The space acts as a kind of buffer that halts any waves of stopped cars rippling backwards. You don't necessarily get where you're going any faster, but it's much more engaging than just sitting in traffic, and you make the road better for everyone behind you.
I drive like this now, and I've noticed another added benefit, which is people merging, usually to get off the highway. If it's bumper to bumper, you have to stop to let a car in if they want to merge into your lane, which further halts any traffic behind you. But if you've got a ton of space in front of you, people can merge as they please with little to no impact on you or the cars behind you.
As long as I don't have anywhere to be, I absolutely love driving in traffic. It's way less boring, and it feels like I'm doing a service to everyone around me. I'm also far from the only person who does this, and it can be fun to encounter others. It's funny because if they're behind you, you end up in this almost oasis, where everyone to either side is bumper to bumper, but you've got like 50+ feet of empty road in front of and behind you lol
The problem is that the average space that can be between cars is the circumference of this circle divided by the number of cars. Meaning it is not possible for each of these cars to have enough distance to prevent jams.
I do the same. Big gap in front, and a constant slow roll, always watching not just the car in front of me but also 10+ cars down the line. So much nicer than gostopgostopgostopgostop every 3 seconds.
And you get there in the same amount of time or better.
@@timmiller1thats true. Most people want to get ahead and will take that gap as a way to beat traffic, while others are oblivious to their tail gating.
I see this every day because I live on a high floor next to a major road. It always makes me have a fun time watching it go backwards. Sometimes the traffic is light enough that it resolves, but sometimes it never resolves. It's one of the biggest problems with human drivers in dense traffic, but artificial drivers are no better (yet).
Artificial drivers will sadly never be better enough for it to matter, as this is a factor moreso of traffic density than individual bad decisions. Even a perfect AI driver will have to brake slightly when someone else is merging in, and with perfect cohesion between cars that still creates a backward-propagating wave. If the distance between vehicles is too small, the wave will persist and interfere with other waves to create pockets of traffic.
@@deadcarbonboy just not braking when the car in front is braking then accelerating. So you can very well stop some waves if you have even a normal distance margin
@@este_marco that's what I'm saying, you can't not brake when the vehicle density is too high. Traffic is caused by number of cars on the road, not solely by bad drivers
is your pfp the codepen logo?
@@deadcarbonboy 90% of ppl have a good margin to improve. i legit think useless traffic slow down can be outright removed from existence if we all learned and applied the good behaviors for good flowing traffic.
This is actually a great illustration
And jus realized its 11 yrs old too. Woow.
45 years ago they showed us videos that were exactly like this back when they were all on film strip, before VHS or any of that replaced eall of it, we saw lots of these examples in class. They were all pretty much the same and hasn't changed over the years.
Japan had the best videos on the subject and the best studies that I saw.
@@ottotater2787 wow. Fascinating
The rise of US highways post-war actually created a counterargument all its own, so much that the UK began advocating against US urban development, which is entirely car-centric. So yes, this has been around for many decades already.
Now it's 2024 and people complain that we didn't have the foresight to predict traffic, but we had all the information years ago. Everyone was just too shortsighted to acknowledge it wasn't the solution.
@@driftofair9691 greed and bad intent
This is why following distance is key. With 4-6 car lengths of space you can ideally coast when you notice slower traffic. If you do need breaks or need to stop or behind a driver who overuses their breaks then add following distance or change lanes
This is why it's better to use both lanes and merge late when travelling at low speed. The extra space helps things keep moving smoothly.
This is why people want to remove the extra lane to make a small two lane road that goes in both directions and add a cycling path instead.
@@Carlium that would also help reduce traffic jams. Good idea!
@@dubious_potat4587 Sarcasm?
@@Carlium Nobody wants that
@@starlight122012 why? it has been shown theoretically and experimentally that diversifying transport options reduces traffic
I love the fact they’re using Vampire Weekend for the background music. Definitely from 2013
It's perfect, yeah.
Based on how recent all of these top comments are, I'm guessing the RUclips algorithm had another episode, and everybody randomly got reccomented this 12 year old video at around the same time
So, California drivers. Y'all make your own traffic jams more than ive ever seen anywhere else. It's a miracle you can get anywhere around San Diego
The slow reactions of setting off again also cause the propogation. The fact that everyone only seems to think about putting it in gear once the car that's already 5 metres away from them starts moving, is allowing the wave to keep going. If the vehicle in front of you is slowing down you should slow right down and aim to keep moving until you are about to have a crash, to smooth out the motion for the cars behind you
YES! Thank you, I was waiting for this comment. I believe you are exactly right. And, once stopped, you need immediately begin moving your car the moment that the car in front of you starts moving. Pay attention to the cars ahead of the car in front of you, so that you can time the beginning of your car's movement to precisely when the car in front of you starts moving.
@@tedz2usayep. You start moving with the car in front of the car thats in front of you only to have to press the brake again because the guy in front of you never started to move when he should have 😅
This thread is great advice if you wanna cause a rear-end in a traffic jam! 😂👍
Yes, in theory would remedy the problem, but in the real world it's extremely risky due to the unpredictable reactions of the driver in front. For instance they might feel pressured by your actions and choose irrational reactions like brake-checking you!
But even without slow reacting and vengeance seeking drivers in front of you, this way of driving will quickly result in an accident, because it requires maximum alertness, extreme focus and lightning fast reactions, which will exhaust your mental resources in no time!
@@LRM12o8 Ive been doing this for years with no problems. We are talking about standstill speeds here.
@@LRM12o8 the fact driving like this is considered an extreme level of alertness shows that most people shouldn't be on the road at all. Driving at any speed for any reason should require this level of attention.
So glad I found this! Now I can use it as a visual aid when explaining this phenomenon to people.
I hope you also explain the rest. on its own this is somewhat misleading.
@@MusikCassettewhat rest? this is exactly how most traffic jams happen, doesn't even matter how many lanes
This is a great visual!
We called it the slinky effect when hiking in the miltary. Our formation was determined by height, tall guys in front, short guys in back. Taller people having a longer stride would minimize this effect but it would still happen, resulting in lots of running instead of walking if you were in the back.
The instructors made us swap order once so the tall guys would understand the importance of keeping a good pace and not stopping/slowing down.
I've always noticed in light traffic on freeways, even when there aren't "traffic jams", vehicles don't spread out. There are packs and voids. What happens is slower cars and large trucks are going at or lesser than the speed limit and form the front of the packs. Behind them are cars that would like to go faster but either adjust their speed to that speed, or are slowed until they can filter through to the front and then speed up to their normal pace, until get to the back of the next pack. These collections are usually about 20 car lengths or so in size with cars only separated by a few lengths, but the spaces between the packs can be enormous, like a quarter mile or half a mile. If you're driving a little over the average speed, you get through one of those packs, and for the next five minutes in the void, it's like you're the only one on the freeway.
This would be solved by all semis only being in the rightmost one or two lanes, and the passing lane being left open just for passing. Unfortunately, literally everyone on the road thinks the speed they are going is the universal rule, and anyone that wants to go faster should go pound sand so they block the passing lane or drive anywhere they want.
Semis are already *technically* supposed to be and are required to be in the right lane when traveling and only use the left lanes when passing. An issue I've seen regularly is when a tractor can only reach 70 mph, and wants to pass several other vehicles, often other tractors, going 65. Results in a 4 minute long "Pass" in the passing lane. Major traffic jam. You're correct though, if people understood to stick to the rightmost lane any time there's space to do so, this would never really be an issue. They don't, for some reason, and that's why we can't have nice things.
@@KeterMalkuth You're both right except the Move Over Law only applies to freeways. It does not apply to any roads that have left turns. Semis and heavy trucks should be ticketed more for hogging the 3rd or 4th lane away from the left shoulder. No excuse for it.
I've had Jeeps yell at me, pass me while I'm going 10 over, Pass me really close to rubbing my back quarter just to cut me off with their right signal on, so going 20+ over the limit. This is on a two lane *residential* area lol. I just honk at them when they run up close like that and show them my left signal, as I am turning left! Also I never drive close to or beside other people, so they have zero reason to harass me like that.
Where I live, we call the event of trucks ignoring the keep right rule and slowly passing eachother "elephant races"
It's the end of any 2-lane speedway
We need to introduce HEAVY ticketing to people who are cruising less than the speed limit in the passing lanes.
@@KeterMalkuth I remember I once saw a semi try to pass another semi in the right lane. He crept along, taking 3 business days to get alongside the other guy, only to lose his momentum or whatever and just end up going the exact same speed as the truck in the right lane for like 4 miles. Backed up a lot of traffic behind him with that stunt lol
it looks like a bbc circle ident with the cars going round the cone circle
Wow this is such a fascinating simple way to illustrate this
"with this many cars tiny problems get magnified up, it's really no one's fault"
"You mean I can blame just one or two people?"
story of my life this is.
Sad life. Let’s all take buses and trains and relax and never have to worry about traffic again (if we all stop driving and use higher capacity alternatives, the traffic is gone)
CGP Grey be like:
He only said stuff but this actually shows it
Always love how it moves like an accordion
The biggest issue that i can assume that causes this is when a car in front of you appears to slow down, some people will break more than the person in front. When breaking your distance between the car in front of you should be constant and not increasing
A cure to this is start moving when the 2nd car infront of you starts moving.
Ofcouse stop tailgating but that entails people not using the space to cut lanes. Maybe a laser projector that just warns anyone from cutting infront of you by marking the space in red. It also lets you know if youre tailgating(sometimes i forget and be back by only 2 cars whereas i should be back by 3).
Also introduce micro fines using camera and AI technology, eg lane cutting just to join a faster lane and not go towards an exit or not coming in from an entry should be fined .25 cents automatically. Going slow on the fast lane, 10 cent per 3 miles. Not breaking away from a Wolfpack, 1 cent per mile, drafting too close, 2 cent per mile. Etc. we got the technology to solve this. Maybe try this on two expressway lanes on the highway first.
Also maybe some sort of scheduling notification system that says "Hey according to your calender you're selected to be part of traffic group 3.30(the time) you should leave within 10 mins to join your group. Yea you can skip this if you want but maybe you dont get access to the expressway lanes like i mentioned before.
Also obv autopilot syncing. That automatically collectively controls flow of traffic.
You'll see all the tech i mentioned get inevitably get implemented. But i feel like by then we'll have teleportation.
that micro fines thing is the goofiest shit i'm so sorry. i get what you're trying to say but this is not worth it. we do not have the infrastructure for that. cars will drive themselves within our lifetimes anyways. besides, would you like us to live a dystopian reality where cameras individually track every person driving and cost them money for not being robots?
@@scubasteve6175 might just be the cameras in your car that do it for you. Again, it would be voluntary. You can just choose to not use the expressway lanes like I mentioned.
So many people against tailgating here. It's annoying sure. It's unsafe for reaction time sure, but it does not make traffic slower...
@@pineappleparty1624 it does. That distance allows smooth slowing down and speeding up. Allows time for correcting the jam. Tailgating makes harsher slow downs and a even harsher chain reaction.
@@snitox If anything, it would just make those slow pokes, poke even slower behind someone breaking a little harder. Oh well.
On busy roads, with more than one lane, this is often caused by people signalling and pulling out without checking space, forcing those in the lane to brake suddenly.
Or those in the lane slowing to let someone pull out.
In a single carriage roads, simply over braking, not keeping to a constant speed, and everyone doing that at different times. Yes I can cruise at 40, 50 or 60 mph, but naturally I may sometimes be a few mph quicker or slowers based on curves in road or hills, and if the person behind me has a car that manages slightly different to mine the gap closes.
Additionally it is caused by someone keeping to the speed limit, or safe speed, and the person behind going the 2%+2 over the speed limit, or slightly faster than what the other considers a safe speed for the road/conditions.
All of these contribute to these phantom traffic jams.
Like they say, everyone drives slightly differently, and that causes the queue.
Not tailgating, as trying not to tailgate means slowing down.
These traffic jams are rarely caused by a normal driver/vehicle going ridiculously under the speed limit. But many seem to think that they must always drive at the speed limit, which is why around where I live - mainly country roads with the derestricted sign, many take the corners too fast and end up in ditches as they don't drive for road, they drive for the speed.
Yes, it is annoying when I know I can safely go 50 (sometimes 60) on a section of the road, but as they are usually short sections staying at 40 behind someone adds seconds to my journey not minutes.
On Motorways there are always morons who hog the middle lane and refuse to change lanes, so when you are in a lane approaching a slower vehicle, you have to pull into the middle lane cause the lane hog to break and then others behind to break which causes phantom traffic jams
@starlight122012 how to say you didn't read my comment without saying you didn't read my comment.
This my comment was nothing about lane hogging, get a life.
STOP HARASSING ME.
@@tkralva.6668 How is one reply harassing you, you silly snowflake?
You mentioned a road with more than one lane, maybe be more specific on that, because that is ambiguous.
My comment is still valid regarding lane changes due to not enough space, yes I did read your comment.
@@tkralva.6668 A single reply to your public comment is NOT harassment, you big baby. What a whiny brat.
Same for traffic lights. A lot of the time, the first car starts driving, then the second, then the third. But if just everyone would start driving at the same time, the line would move as a whole.
The way to help avoid becoming the problem is by maintaining a consistent distance away from the car two cars ahead. If they’re driving smooth you can stay smooth. If the car in front of you is inconsistent, you’ll be protecting the cars behind from their slow/fast driving
what was the average speed of this cars before, and after? (I mean if you have more space in front of you, you can go faster, but then slow down)
wasn't expecting hear vampire weekend lol
Thank you! I recognised it but couldn't remember the title, artist or enough lyrics to Google it and it would have driven me mad lol
@kutanra Sure, I believe they used "One (Blake's Got A New Face)" for the first song and "Campus" for the second.
Just dropped by to say, WHOGIVAFUKABADA TRAFFIC JAMMA.
Spent 45 minutes in a jam the other day, that went for about 2 kilometers. At the end...nothing. Went from 5 kmh back to the 100 speed limit and I was fuming.
At first, I thought they were gonna go off and cause a jam on the road on purpose as a joke/experiment but it turned into something better.
Another thing that causes traffic congestion is when there is a queue of cars waiting for the green traffic light, the light goes green and everybody moves off 1 at a time rather than all going at once. It doesn't matter if youre the first car in the queue or the tenth, all vehicles should move once the green light shows.
Yes. I do this, but it requires leaving enough space to be able to start driving even if the car in front doesn't
you can't do this if the guy in front of you doesn't go.
@@16m49x3 leaving extra space can cause problems for the people behind you if they're trying to get in a lane that starts close to the light.
@@Scroolewse you can if you have a little room
@@16m49x3 leave too much space and someone behind you can't get into the left turn lane.
This is why rail should be priority
You can't have rail everywhere. There will always be highways.
@@Stratus41298 true but highways cost 10x to maintain with no revenu to offset the costs of damage from overloaded modern vehicles that weighs in at almost 2 ton when empty.( ps this is a north american thing). So for long distance travel like a 4+hour long trip the train should be the main way. But for short distance travel a car or other means like a bike or tram/bus. Lets build society for humans again not just long distance cars.
Yeah, no matter which way you look at it, individual vehicles for personal transport are worse for society overall AND for individuals. A car-based society is a monstrous drain on society; walkable and bikeable cities with public transport have much less space wasted on roads and parking lots/spaces, are much quieter, have much lower road costs, much lower overall costs for individuals who don't need to own and maintain their own cars...
nah im never getting on public transportation again
@@coolguyx14 man that's not very cool of you.
Here in Brazil, some areas where its common for people to drive over the speed limit the traffic guys in plain clothes create the phantom jam on weekends and holidays to diminish the collisions.
This video should have been titled: “Researchers prove people can’t drive”
Shouldn’t*
I wish we could redo this experiment with the instructions for the drivers to do their best to keep the same distance to the car in front as the car in back
Or just try to maintain the initial following distance in front.
This whole country is addicted to driving so why can’t we redo the experiment
If you want to get rid of this. Drive an equal distance from the driver behind and in front. Keep your speed regular. Mimetic while get rid of this traffic faster than you can even believe.
That's all fine and dandy. Except the guy behind me really, really wants to see what color upholstery my seats are. And whenever you keep a safe distance an opportunist will plunge his metal death contraptio right in front of yours.
If your solution is "things would be perfect if everyone would just do X", then it's going to fail in advance because people are selfish assholes.
@@EnterJustice no, it's not a requirement for everyone to do X. it works as a rule for the individual driver, and if everyone individually did this at the same time, we would have a fully cooperative flow of traffic. it is like saying the economy will collapse because people steal. yes, thieves negatively affect the economy, but people still pay rather than just throwing their hands in the air saying it will never work.
so you are reading it wrong and you are saying might as well steal since some guy next to me is doing it. and yes, you will get ahead, stealing or cutting traffic, but it's not cooperative like paying for stuff. you still pay for stuff, yes? so this rule is a way to drive that potentially mitigates phantom traffic jams. possibly less accidents, less wasteful acceleration/braking.
but i am not saying this solves everything. because phantom traffic jams arent real anyway. they are usually real traffic jams caused by a bottleneck in front. so that is why cutting is actually effective if you want to cheat. the example of using a phantom traffic jam is a faulty one. it implies real bottlenecks are just your imagination and that your commute to and from work are caused by phantom traffic jams. but for the video about phantom ones, this rule actually will prevent it.
Not everybody will see this video and follow this lesson. The only true way to solve this is by full autonomy of every car on the road
@@EnterJustice another driver getting into that gap is not a problem. Just add more space. That's not a valid reason to tailgate at all. There is no limit to how many cars can merge into a lane if they are traveling at the correct speed
@@TitanFlaresomeone hasn’t driven in a city. If you leave a car length, someone is going to take that. Sure then you ease off the speed, the person behind you breaks, another car jumps in front of you. Now you have to slow down even more. And the person behind you will have to brake even more. This happens, and it’s not preventable. It just depends on the drivers that happens to be around you whether they act appropriately or not, not exclusively on your actions as an individual
It’s like to point out something critical , that people NEED to realize while in a traffic jam the best thing you can do is move slowly allow space to open up in front of you and to not just immediately change lanes or speed up to fill the space. Patience ends the traffic jam. Aggressive lane changes and taking space worsens it.
I thought i wouldnt like road engineering when I first started my degree, but seeing the role that psychology and sociology play in this field got me hooked
As a road engineer I sure hope you’re familiar with induced demand
Myth busters did this as well. I think they found out the road length and number of cars ratio
Does this neglect to consider the shitness of drivers ratio?
@@BrandNewByxor hahaha excellent point
Sometimes I wish driving licenses would be as hard to obtain as is a pilots license.
Would keep the idiots off the road. Most people are completely unaware of their surroundings...
Yes and then a lot more of us would take higher capacity alternatives such as buses and trains and the traffic would all be gone!
I think at the very least we should require drivers tests to be retaken at regular intervals. Say every 2 years or so. It’s crazy that you take your test once as a teen and never again.
@@Bromon655 Even if you've had zero accidents or traffic tickets or anything? Maybe we should all go back to high school, too. I'm sure we've forgotten all the Math and English we learned 20 years ago. 🤷
@@Bromon655 yes I agree. Personally I choose to trust professional drivers to take me places instead.
What I wonder is can this be fixed? If one driver starts driving slow enough that he never actually needs to stop for the jam then the jam would eventually be solved until it happens again, right?
To elaborate: what I mean is that the guy in front of you is driving normally, when he reaches the jam he has to slow down and eventually stop because the person in front of him did so. You see him slowing down to a stop but you're going slow enough that by the time you reach him, he has already started moving again. Now you have never had to stop and all the people behind you didn't have to stop either because they had to match your speed, after the guy in front of you starts going you simply match his speed and now there's no jam (until it happens again).
Very good advertisement for self driving cars.
This is why adding more lanes has so little benefit after a point as well - adding lanes adds interactions exponentially
Meanwhile just two train tracks has ridiculously high capacity, and 4 is just unfathomable.
I know how to fix this. What if you just connected all the cars together and made them run on a designated schedule and stop at specific locations, no traffic jams!
You could make it produce less pollution by having it run off electricity from some kind of over head wires. Then make it more efficient and produce less micro plastics using metal rails!
The Automotive Centipede
How to reinvent the bus, only worse.
it never gets old 😂😂😂
@@driftofair9691train
Man the rail stans are just having a field day with this one.
We sure are :)
Vampire Weekend goes hard in the background 🎧
indeed
(blaaaaake’s got a new face)
Trains wouldn't suffer from this problem, because they can be scheduled and coordinated. And all you need in order to sort out thr scheduling is a guy who knows how to use Microsoff Excel. Unfortunately, the ministry of transport is severely lacking in people experienced enough to know how to turn on a laptop.
Trains are literally made of this problem, just a bunch of tailgater wagons
It's not just being scheduled, it's the absolutely staggering capacity. A high efficiency freeway lane carries 2400 people per hour when free flowing, which drops precipitously when there's a jam - easily lower than 1000. A 6 car train can carry 1500 fairly easily, and carries exactly the same amount when over capacity. Run 15 of those an hour and that's more capacity than a perfectly flowing 9 lane each way freeway.
@@rizizum No, because all of the wagons start and stop at roughly the same time, so it completely avoids the accordion effect.
@@klondike3112 no its just a big accordion, all the wagons are in a single traffic jam
@@rizizum what the hell are you talking about 😂
how about connecting all those cars together like in a T R A I N
Idiotic
AdamSomething strike again
so what happens when I want to pull off to have a burger, or decide on a whim that I'm going to visit my aunt halfway?
@@Freezorgium 1) You get off the train at the next stop, have your burger at a restaurant nearby, go back to the station get on the next train, which you'll only have to wait a few minutes for if your trains have decent frequency. 2) You don't visit your aunt on a whim. You plan it at least a day ahead of time. Nobody wants a random visit without warning. But if your aunt does live nearby, you could get off the train at the stop closest to her home and take transit and/or a bike/scooter the rest of the way. If she doesn't, plan ahead, or drive (rent, or use a car you don't have to rely on for everyday trips because you have competent infrastructure)
@@Freezorgiumget off, walk like 3 minutes tops to a burger place, walk back, get on, get off, take a bus to your aunt, take a bus back, get on, get off, take a bus home
This is such a good video to show to people! I read about phantom traffic jams somewhere, it explained to much
Great visual
It helps to keep a decent distance to the driver in front of you, who just cant hold speed and goes between 70 and 100 kmh all the time.
Keep some distance, get a permanent speed like 85 kmh.
This saves you nerves and petrol and it wont cause traffic jam behind you.
No, the only way to make this work is to keep as close to the driver in front as you can. That way you will give space to the one behind you, so he can go faster as well, and so on..
Micla None you still a fucking idiot?
@@miclanone955 And then the first vehicle has to make an emergency stop and you got 30 cars piled up. Well done Ms. Intelligence.
Well, the "truth" is actually somewhere between the two extremes. Obviously we all perceive danger and thus the comfortable distance between us and the car in front of us differently.
I have to admit, I'm on the offensive side, probably keeping too short a distance for many people. Obviously it's different based on speed, the surroundings, the traffic and not to mention, whether it's city or highway driving. I've never rear ended anybody, even though I've had a few close ones (usually when somebody was "cautiously" starting to break way sooner than was necessary, like, coming to a red light, they'd basically slow down almost to a halt almost 100 meters before the already stopped cars).
One other thing to note, when I drive like that (which is almost always), I'm almost hyper aware, fully invested in the act of driving but that for me is normal, a no brainer and the way it should be. I think too many of us value being comfortable and relaxed while driving over safety and alertness. I said safety, I know, but bear with me.
At least we can probably agree most people don't want to have to be hyper aware as if they are driving a realy race, being that alert to everything makes us more tired and driving is already tiring enough. Ok, but why did I say people choose that over safety? Because I (and I'd think most professional drivers) truly believe only way to drive safely is to be fully alert. So anything where you're not as alert as if you're in a race (not racing per se, but driving a bit more agressive, while still being defensive because you just have to read other drivers around you - not sure how exactly they call it, but motorcycle drivers have to drive that way) is just not safe driving.
One example that happens to me waaaay too often to be just a coincidence: as I also have these things called blinkers (amazingly, they came with the base model, at no additional charge! I know - bonkers!) and I actually know how to use them, coming to a fork, I will signal lane turn waaaay before the car in front of me and I will actually make my move, already be "overtaking" them when they "decide" to do the same, only turning blinkers moments before the lane change and mirror check. Since that's the moment they realize someone is already in their newly chosen part, they will kind of jerk(?) the wheel back to their lane, all surprised. Now, you may argue they are just bad drivers and I wouldn't debate you, but I'd say they look awful lot like a "normal careful driver" and I look like the unpatient "mad" driver. And unpatient I am, unpatient for them to start driving and stop doing whatever they were doing. But in their eyes I was the one "speeding" and they were "driving carefully, i.e. slow". It's just that they also thought they're all alone in the traffic. :)
EDIT: Don't worry, since I always expect them to do that, I usually slow down and flash to signal to them to make the lane change in front of me. Only way I don't do that is when I see nobody closely behind me and I realize they'll have plenty of time to make the lane change after I pass them. And I will pass them quickly, not like they would "stall" in that situation if it were reversed. Funny enough, never had that happen to me where I could have a chat with that person afterwards to really pick their brain and find out what they thought.
This is the basis of congestion pricing. By keeping road sections at just below its operational capacity at certain speed, traffic jams magically disappear
Or in other words, increase capacity and gone are the problems.
@@Asto508 That's the opposite of what they said
@@Norsilca How so?
@@Asto508 They're talking about reducing usage, not increasing capacity
@@Asto508just one more lane bro and congestion will be solved
If only people were taught to start moving at the same time, especially at traffic lights. When the vehicle at the front starts moving, everyone should then start moving at the same time instead of one by one. This would improve traffic flow during rush hour greatly.
Sometimes when I'm driving on the highway, I'll brake randomly just so the thousands of people behind me can be like, "Hey wtf."
Trains>cars
Cant park a train in my garage
@@LordRambo Take a bus to the train station
@@ranindersingh9798 Can't park a bus in my garage.
@@ranindersingh9798 what train station and what bus
I don't see them except in the largest cities here
@@LordRambo You can park a cycle in your garage
If more people used cruise control this wouldnt happen. I can’t live without it
It somewhat depends on CC. Older units are a simple throttle position lock without any radar or lidar in front and most disengage under certain speed, so you have to keep an eye and manually correct. More consistent yes, but if a driver is bad at driving then even tech will have trouble countering it.
It's never hard for me to maintain speed until i'm driving near a cop, then it's impossible to not gradually start speeding.
That won't help because even if the people in the test were driving the same car model they won't be able able to engage cruise control precisely at the same time which will gradually cause the phantom jam. As humans we have different reaction times and responses to any given situation.
not just cruise control but an Adaptive Cruise Control. it's a God send I tell you.
Has nothing to do with keeping the same speed. Speed WILL fluctuate no matter what. But if people didn't tailgate, the fluctuations would ebb to nothing
This happens with multiple lanes too. It's usually 2 cars driving next to one another who are completely complacent. Neither is committed to passing the other and both are driving slower than average traffic (even if only by a little). This can often create a Phantom "One Lane Only" scenario where only 1 open lane is flowing freely and the other tow lanes are trying to cram into it to move past the blockage resulting in that lane getting clogged up too, especially when another slow person gets in there and takes their sweet time passing. This happens the most when 1 large truck tries to pass another and either won't or straight up can't overtake fast enough.
All of this is even worse on uneven highways with hills where a person is maintaining a specific constant pressure on their gas pedal, resulting in them going faster and then slower and then faster again with the inclines of the terrain, meanwhile the people behind them trying to maintain a constant specific speed instead have to keep making unwanted adjustments to their speed to avoid collisions in front of them or holding up others behind them (while under frustration 😅)
It would also help if people drove at least max 5 over the speed limit.
Fluctuating speed is what causes bunching up. But if someone driving 4 over the speed limit is causing you to bunch up you are the problem imo
When you got a slow person in the right lane ahead then another slow person synched up in the left lane, who won’t pass or speed up so everyone stuck behind them gets bottlenecked. It always has to happen when you’re running late or in a hurry too. Very frustrating
1. Don't over-brake or be stopped longer than you need to.
2. Watch the car ahead of the car in front of you, and attempt to start moving forward when they do.
3. Eliminate lag.
3. The harder you accelerate, the slower you'll have to brake when you catch up.
4. Strive for slow continuous motion.
Eliminating lag and watching the car in front you to go at the same time is impossible. The average person is physiologically too unintelligent to conceptualize a simple system like this. Their brains are literally incapable of producing thoughts that complex.
If everyone maintained good distance so they need to use their brakes and just the car roll at an optimal speed to main good spacing their would be no jam
What you really desire is for all of us to have the same brain, same aptitude and abilities, same reflexes and same driving preferences. Not possible. :) We'd need to give up driving to the cars to come even near that (again, different manufacturers might still have slightly differently behaved AIs) and I for one welcome that future. Humans just aren't cut out for dull everyday driving and that's it.
Duh
@@ddelimardriving a car is hardly a task that requires any sort of extraordinary abilities. The problem is there are too many fuckin idiots in this world. Idiots who can’t do anything right
@@ddelimar Or just use trains, let their cars mechanically "communicate" with one another and problem solved.
@@jakub.kubicek I love trains, but commuting and travelling can't be left with only one mode of transport. Many cities don't have rail infrastructure so to get somewhere after you travel with train, there needs to be a way to just use roads. Self driving taxis, car/bike sharing and that last mile solutions like electric scooters are in our future (actually, electricity is what all of them will be powered by ;)).
*that one 1 mpg pickup truck accelerating with a traffic light less than a quarter mile in front of him*
When I'm in a traffic jam I take pleasure in staying in the slow lane and leaving many car lengths in front of me.
They should have gone up to the people who brake first and made it very clear they specifically are the reason we have traffic.
No, the number of cars is the cause of the problem. No one can drive efficiently when there is a small gap, and there must be small gaps if there are too many vehicles for the given space.
This should be mandatory viewing before licenses are issued
Seriously tho. The German driving school is already on average 7 months long, and the road experience is generally much better here than anywhere else, but this still needs to be part of the mandatory theory classes
Terrence Howard:
"See, it's all waves Mayne"
They need to show this to the guy doing 64 in the left lane when the speed limit is 65mph.
Who tf is this discount james may?
I would be happy if they created a tailgating law on the motorway. Fines/points/sent on a course.
in the United States we have do not tailgate laws.
If you follow somebody more than one car length per every 10 Mi an hour you are going, then by definition that's tailgating.
the fine is often a reckless driving charge.
It is enforced very often but Americans are really really ignorant and assume that 75% of the tickets given are for speeding,
when in reality they are more often written for other infractions.
Tailgating is often writen up as wreckless driving. for things like that.
Speeding is a very common ticket here as we have less disputable methods of determining speed then we do enforcement of tailgating proof, but if you go to an american traffic court as I used to have to do for my job,
You should observe really quickly that the vocalizations on the street about what police enforce are different than common asumption.
often times when people get charged with an offense for a particular crime they are put into a courtroom where other people are charged with similar crimes so that the judge can be properly educated on that crime before he makes judgment on those people.
so sometimes when people go to traffic court themselves to pay a ticket they assumed that that's all they write tickets for because everybody in that courtroom that day was pulled over for that or a similar crime because that's the day the police officer took off so he could go to court to affreas those people.
people think cops know the law so that they're looking for legally infractions when in reality cops don't know the law otherwise they wouldn't take a job where they get their asses kicked and get shot at for a living.
Some people say that most tickets are for speeding because they never go to court to find out what most tickets are for
chargthat they are passing could possibly be writing a ticket for.
but Americans are all to willing to spread rumor based on their own ignorance and assumption rather than verified fact.
Would you also be happy about the added government bureaucracy and the rather significant tax increase to pay for it?
If you don't want to be tailgated, don't do 65 in lane 3. Put your foot down or move over.
@@caitthenerd7470 tell me your drive a BMW without telling me you drive a BMW
@@fpser4888 Bestie what on earth makes you think I can afford a BMW?
That's why you try to keep inertia in traffic jams. Driving very slowly, but consistent. So it resolves the jam eventually.
concertina effect ( accordion effect, is the correct term for it )
I love how the video shows the inevitability of traffic jams and people in the comments all started blaming bad drivers.
The system is flawed, blaming individuals won’t get us anywhere.
Nope. It's entirely possible to avoid this. Stop making excuses for bad drivers.
@@lucasgamernelson989precisely my face when I speed by all these people stuck in traffic trying to make it better. How? Train :) 💅
Unbelievable discovery. Ground breaking.
If this was a video explaining how opening a door allows one to walk from one room to another I'd be more amazed.
@@simonfoote6453 What's with the weird sarcasm?
I saw a quote that stuck with me.
Traffic, for the most part, is caused by bad drivers.
Yeah this is still true 12 years later
BUILD MORE TRAINS
We don't want to USE trains. I want to drive where I want, when I want!
@@pineappleparty1624 building trains would cause less traffic, its pretty easy to understand that public transportation causes less traffic. Not the additional lanes they build.
@@NoOne-py5or Then you ride it with the hobos. Not every city should have trains, sorry!
@@pineappleparty1624 Every city should have a train, just like every city should be walkable and have buses.
@@pineappleparty1624How to say you are an American without saying you are an American
The problem is too many damn people. If there were only 4 cars in the circle they wouldnt jam up.
Including you, man.
@@albertoarbasino I got a vasectomy so I'm doing my part at least.
If we don’t do something soon in 27.3 years there will be so many idiots in cars the roads will just be cars sitting still bumper to bumper, no one moving an inch. Raise the driving age, take away elderly licenses and give harsher penalties to fkn idiots and dui drivers
The circle sets the following distance more than anything, not the number of people. For all intents and purposes, a real freeway is practically infinite. So the number of people isn't an issue, it's the following distance
@@XDWX Yeah after you impregnated the missus you mean
Same with starting from lights. If everyone start at the same time - even 2-3 times more cars can go through. If people are looking into phones or fixing makeup and start sequentially - you get jams too
The safe speed is related to how close cars are following.
Reduced speed also compresses traffic reducing safe speed further.
Roads tend to jam up when their optimum capacity is exceeded.
The experience can be improved by dampening rather than amplifying the stop-starts.
Roll on autonomy
but the guy at the top right just full stopped for like a solid 5 seconds at :31. test is bogus, but the concept still applies and has been proven before.
Yeah, wtf was that about?
I love these tests but damn........
Clickable timestamps are written like 0:31
You'd be surprised how often people are THAT guy
I don't think the test was bogus at all. This wasn't testing our ability to drive in circle with friends with whom we agreed the speed prior to drive. :)
Even if the stop was induced, it still shows what happens in normal traffic. Think about it. All that's needed for this fanthom traffic jam to occur is one of the following: somebody slows down to deal with something (phone, another person, anything), somebody behind them, not expecting change in pace slams the brakes a bit more and the next person (if close enough) has to almost halt to a full stop - welcome to a fanthom traffic jam, it can now make dozens and dozens if vehicles to have to stop for no apparent reason.
So really, the reason why the first car had to slow down is irrelevant really, this happens way more than you'd think. The first car doesn't even have to full stop, just drive slower than surrounding traffic. Say, try to be "more careful" in traffic, but really just being kind of bad drivers.
Test isn't bogus, the one guy just stopping for no reason at the front and creating the jam is what happens in the real world. It's a perfect simulacrum because it takes away all possible noise and just spits out "yeah jams happen because the person at the front decided to just stop or slow down such a significant amount that it blows up the highway behind them"
The solution is less cars on the roads.
It will never change. We need more cars in the sky imo.
What