The Zen of Traffic Jams: Cool it or Lose It

If you live in or near a big city, you can't avoid them; you can't drive around them; you just have to get through them with as much humor and sanity as you can.

Notice the two words, humor and sanity, I put them there for a reason. Having lived near Boston for a long, long, long time, I've driven on roads occupied by some of the worst drivers in the nation. You've probably heard stories about "Boston drivers" -- that we're inconsiderate, intolerant and, in many cases, ignorant of even the basic tenets of good driving.

Well, folks I have to tell you, you're right and it really comes out at rush hour when people drive as if they were a school of piranha. For instance, if there's a sudden hole in a traffic jam, everyone within 100 yards of that hole will try to fill it, even if it means just getting ahead one or two places and they won't even acknowledge the fact that they might be cutting you off.

For many drivers in Boston (and other major cities, if televised news reports are to be believed), the answer to something like this would be screaming, horn-honking, fist (and other appendage) waving and other

things that could be called road rage. I'm not claiming to be the world's greatest guru on driving, although I have written about automotive issues and reviewed cars for the better part of the last 40 years (would you believe I was 12 when I started?), so I have a pretty good perspective on drivers and driving and I've actually figured out some ways to handle traffic jams that will probably leave other drivers screaming at me, but, that's their business. I just want to remain calm and enjoy the drive as best as I can. I've kept these secrets locked away in a slowly rusting brain for the many years that I have been driving and now I'm sharing them with you.

1. Slow down: When I say slow down, I mean stay at the general speed of the traffic around you, even if the cars in front start to pull away from you, creating a "hole" in the traffic. Yes, there will be yo-yos who will rush to fill in that hold and if they do, just back off a little bit more and let them have their fun. All they are doing is becoming the rear of the traffic ahead. I try to play a game with the traffic ahead and it's simply this, I drive slowly and at some point I'll let the car just roll. I try to keep my foot off the brake until I absolutely have to hit the brake pedal. In most cases, though, you'll find that you won't have to hit the brake at all, instead, you'll likely be tapping the accelerator.

   (In an interesting aside, I googled traffic jams in preparing for this piece and I came across some interesting work done by Bill Beatty, an electrical engineer and frustrated driver, who founded the "traffic wave" theory. I was almost knocked off my chair when the driving techniques he described were those that I've been using since I was 16.)
   

2. Relax: You just have to realize that traffic will begin to move when it begins to move (you could call this the zen of traffic) and there's very little you can do to speed it up, especially if you are right in the middle of the jam. Just stay in lane and remain alert for people who might want to cut you off or "put you in your place," especially if you just roll along without speeding up and filling any holes that may develop in traffic (I call this the piranha effect. Drop a piece of meat in the water around some hungry piranha and watch the frenzy. Drivers and "holes" in the traffic elicit a similar reaction.
3. Keep your cool: This may sound like number 2 but it really is quite different. When you relax, you just stay calm and collected at all times, however when you have to keep your cool, it usually means someone is doing something that would normally have you flying off the handle and reacting by either blocking the way or speeding up or doing something really silly. This is where you have to keep you cool. Let the other people do what they want to and back off a little bit more. You'll find that sooner, rather than later, you are suddenly breaking free of the traffic jam and rolling along.
4. Keep your speed down: Don't try to be the first one into a "hole" in traffic and don't go flying ahead if traffic starts to open up. The reason is simple all you are doing is speeding to the next part of the traffic jam (Beatty calls them "traffic waves") as it rolls on toward home. If you keep your speed below the limit and let others run on ahead of you, you'll just keep rolling along nicely while the others who just have to jump ahead end up coming to a dead stop ahead. It's quite likely, in fact, that you'll keep on rolling because there will be no stop at that time, it will have dissolved.
5. Let others mergePractice a little courtesy and if there's a lane drop ahead, let the cars beside you merge. You'd be surprised that if you set an example by allowing a merge to happen, instead of letting a car just sit and wait, that pretty soon traffic will be flowing pretty smoothly through the lane drop.
6. Courtesy is the key: In all of this, there's one overriding factor, it's called courtesy. It is guaranteed to keep your blood pressure down and if enough of us do it, then, who know it may become the norm, instead of the exception. This may sound like "kids stuff" or "amateur hour," but it really isn't. It's a way I have developed to deal with rush hour traffic jams and it really does work. Indeed, my co-pilot sometimes wonders how I do it (although you'd think after nearly 36 years she'd have a good idea) and every time she wants to hit the horn or zoom ahead, I just tell her to "chill." She does and it turns out that she's a lot calmer than when she started out. I'd also like to thank Bill Beatty, EE, who put words around the same physical findings I first noticed more than 40 years ago. His "traffic wave" theory can be found at his web site "traffic waves."

   Beatty found that "traffic waves" existed during his communting on the I-520 near Portland, Ore. Disclaimer: His work was in the 1990s and I first noticed the same phenomena he described as early as 1964 when I received my license.