this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2025
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Most traffic jams actually act as a kind of compression wave moving backwards through traffic. Something as small as a squirrel running across the road can cascade into an hour-long jam.
One person brakes, then the person behind them, then the person behind them, but each time they are getting closer to each other (nobody stays equidistant from the car in front of them when braking). This causes a greater and greater slowdown as more cars are compacted into a tighter space, which travels backwards in traffic like a wave. Often the person who caused it doesn't even realize anything happened.
A lot of mapping software actually estimates a given traffic slowdown by treating traffic as a fluid with a wave moving backwards through it.
That's also why the best way to relieve traffic is to go at a slow even pace without braking. Every time the someone in heavy traffic runs up the ass of another car and brakes hard, or swerves into the "faster" lane and make someone else brake to not hit them, they cause another brake wave. If you have a few cars intentionally just hanging back and cruising with a big enough gap between them and the cars jocking for position in traffic in front of them, then their brake waves do not propogate behind you and eventually traffic just picks up pace again.
Edit: side bonus, you still get there just as fast, but with a lot less stress fighting assholes for position (minus the ones who fly past you thinking you're the asshole for not riding someone else's bumper)
Yeah, in theory it's great but every time I try it people just cut in front of me then slam on brakes causing me to have to brake then adjust then repeat ad nauseam. People suck.
This is why I thought that maybe it would be good to have some kind of pacing cars, e.g. operated by traffic police? I.e. when you already know or can anticipate that there is a large jam building up, you bring in one pacing car on every lane at an appropriate low speed and everyone has to adjust, so the thing you mentioned won't happen.
The problem with that is people would still do the same stupid shit behind the pace cars which would just cause the same issues.
The only way traffic pace cars would work is with better fundamental training (and enforcement of that training [meaning cops would actually have to regularly ticket people for tailgating]).
Especially here in the usa there are hardly any barriers to getting/keeping your license.
There is a massive amount of drivers who either shouldn't be on the road at all or with heavy restrictions like not allowed to drive at night, not allowed on the highway, not allowed to drive certain classes of cars (kinda like other countries do for motorcycles because there is zero reason for any joe schmoe to just be able to legally get behind the wheel of something like a supercar on public roads)
Or we could just build trains and other alternatives to cars, which would end up cheaper, faster, safer, environmentally friendly, ...but we have big oil.
(Sry, I had to)
This is about 2 decades old now but a bunch of people tried something sorta like a pacing car https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoETMCosULQ
Nah, cops being on the highway is one of the big causes of traffic. Everyone slows down to the speed limit when they come up on a cop and many are too timid to pass at all. This causes a huge brake wave and fucks everything up. It's why I don't think speed limits should even be a thing or should at least be adjusted because most highways are so low that just about everyone ignores them (and is not harmed doing so) until law enforcement appears. If people want to go slower that's fine but they need to keep right when they aren't passing and everyone needs to leave plenty of space in front of them so that traffic is permeable enough that people can get to their exit without causing brake waves and absorb the "shock" when it is necessary for someone to hit their brakes.
I feel like regular patrol cars might work like this already - who's going to blow past a cop driving down the road?
me, because i know what speed they'll pull me over at and if they're doing 20 under that, who cares