[dynomight]

I've often thought about traffic flow when stuck in traffic. I'm in favor of a bit of a gap. I'll try to describe it. I'll start with what lead me to my conclusion.

At a stop light that has turned green all the cars do not go at once. They all proceed sequentially from first to last. If the line is long enough, and the light short enough, the last car cannot make it through. If all cars were to accelerate at the same time simultaneously like a train then many more cars would make it through the light. Of course this will never happen with human drivers.

I believe keeping a reasonable buffer in traffic helps prevent the above situation that I see occur at lights. The delay of this affect is repeated for each and every stop.

I think an excessive gap would make the flow worse in the way described in the article. I'm thinking there's a happy medium somewhere. Somewhere between the excessive gap of the one that wants to teach everyone the 'wisdom' of the gap and the hot-heads that want to drive over the person in front.