How to Destroy Traffic Jams: All it Takes is One Smart Driver

Stop me if you've seen this scenario: it's your morning daily commute. You're driving briskly down I-95, when suddenly, everyone in front of you starts breaking. Oh oh. You feel a scream welling up in your throat. Yup, it's that wonderful time of day that we all know and love: rush hour. Realizing that screaming will not make the traffic go any faster, you resort to grumbling along with with everyone else, and you try to distract yourself with the radio.

Traffic jams may be a common occurance, but believe it or not, they don't have to be so painful. The frustration comes from lack of understanding of the structure of a jam, and from basic fear. If you follow some simple tips below, and teach others to do so, you might help us all avoid so many jams.

I said simple, but that doesn't mean they are intuitive. For example, imagine yourself at a Red Light, a few cars back from the intersection. The light turns Green. Green means go, right? (This is not a trick question.) Yet why doesn't the car in front of you go right away? There are two reasons:

1) The car in front of him hasn't gone.
2) It takes a split second (or couple of seconds) to react to the fact that the car in front is now moving.

Those "split seconds" add up. Because humans don't have instant reaction time, every person in turn waits a second or two before going. A car waits, then goes. The next car waits, then goes. And so on. That means the further away you are from an intersection, the longer it takes before you get to go.

The solution to this situation, for yourself and everyone else, is to GO RIGHT AWAY as soon as the car in front of you starts to go. Do not wait. Now, your instinct might tell you otherwise- that it is not "safe" to go yet. However, how many times has someone suddenly hit the breaks in front of you after a light turned green? Think about it. As long as you are paying attention to what is going on in front of you, there is no danger in simply going when the car in front of you goes.

This simple act, of not going when the car in front of you goes, is part of the reason why traffic jams occur. When the jam starts to loosen up, people don't pull out of it right away. That causes everyone behind them to stay in the jam.

The opposite situation occurs as people approach the jam. What is your first reaction when you see red headlights in front of you? That's right, hit your brakes. But hold on a second. Is that car in front of you actually slowing down yet? Notice what happens if when you see Red, you hit your brakes. The car behind you will do the same thing. And the car behind that person, and the car behind that person. Your one act gets propagated down to everyone else on the road.

That means, if you DON'T KEEP HITTING YOUR BREAKS, then people behind you don't have to either, and it ERASES the traffic jam! So, here is how to erase any jam. Instead of breaking before you hit the jam, or anytime you're in the jam itself, give yourself a huge gap in front of you. Then, try to drive at a normal speed (however slow). What will happen? ALL of the cars behind you will follow suit. That's right, the cars behind you no longer need to break or accelerate, because they can drive at a constant speed. You will single handedly have stopped a traffic jam.

Now, spread this knowledge to everyone you know. The more people that understand traffic jams, the more we can all get out of them. All it takes is NOT trying to beat out other drivers, and NOT letting your fear run you. Do a few simple things, and every driver behind you will benefit. Look out for yourself, and make everyone who has to commute to work every day suffer.

Source: amasci.com/amateur/traffic/trafexp.html