[Xurinos]

To all the folks replying that someone will fill the gap in front of you: that’s the point. It isn’t about reaction time. It’s about letting traffic flow easier, not fighting with each other.

It removes the need for your fellow drivers to feel a tension when it is time to switch lanes, to not have to make a risky maneuver. You get to relax when driving because now you aren’t competing to get to your destination, and you can feel more confident others are not going to accidentally hit you in a desperate attempt to go where they are going.

That impatient driver behind you? They will get around you and play the rat race. Let them. Most drivers don’t do that unless you are much obviously slower than traffic flow. Let people win the game they are playing. You are making it generally safer, and your consistency on the road helps them make decisions easier.

I’ve been doing this for about 10 years. No accidents, no cause of accidents, no angry honkers, none of that nonsense. Try it for a week! Give others space to move. Watch traffic jams ease up a little around you. It’s very neat. My space clears spaces so I can move easier after people get in front of me. I’ve seen others follow my example (or be their own example).

[tobmlt]

You beautiful zen traffic wave surfer you. This, a thousand times this. Somewhere on the web there is a great video of a guy doing this pretty effectively. I guess it's maybe five years old now but worth a watch.

I think this wsj vid may contain excerpts from the original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtwY9xKfaYo

If everyone could just relax out there, some of those traffic standing waves would diffuse away to nothing. Ahhh...

When I get in bad traffic and struggle against the urge to tailgate I play a game where I try and give enough space to where I just roll up to the car in front of me as it is starting to move again. This gives me a time-local goal to aim at instead of fixating on supposed "bad actors" I might want to judge instead.

Edit: I found it! (from 2008 it appears) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGFqfTCL2fs

[ethbro]

At least in my city in my commute this morning (~30 minutes), I was forced to hard brake 3 times to avoid having an accident with someone wedging themself in at the end of an exit lane.

I find the problem isn't people merging into your lane in front of you, but doing so badly (ie not leaving a safe amount of space behind their rear bumper and your front bumper).

Semi drivers have this even worse.

[Johnny555]

Are you allowing enough space in front of you for cars to merge in without wedging themselves in front of you?

That's the worst problem I see around here -- cars in the freeway running bumper to bumper, and then a block of 3 or 5 cars also running bumper to bumper trying to force their way in, but none of the cars really leave enough room for a smooth merge, so the cars on the freeway end up hitting the brakes when the merging cars force their way in.

[ethbro]

Yes. I'm guessing because drivers are so used to "forced merging", they don't know what to do when they have an appropriate amount of space.

[tombrossman]

> Semi drivers have this even worse.

There are some advantages to driving a semi in traffic:

- Lots of gears to choose from and massive torque in order to find that perfect 'idle forward' speed.

- Far more comfortable ride then a car, it's not even close.

- Radio communication with trucks ahead, so you know what's happening ahead and which lane to be in long before the cars figure this out.

- Visibility over the top of vehicles in front (except another truck, obviously).

I think the only thing better than a semi for heavy traffic might be a luxury car with adaptive cruise and a little roof-mounted drone-cam that you could launch to check out the view ahead (though this sounds like something Homer Simpson would dream up). Your own little personal traffic copter/R2D2, with a recharging dock on the roof. Someone please tell Elon Musk to make this a priority for new Teslas. It could even check out side streets in cities and find quicker routes.

[ethbro]

I was thinking stop-and-go traffic, which is murder.

Heavy load = longer stop distance = lengthier minimum safe following distance

Minimum safe following distance > 1 car length = motorists darting in front of semis

Rinse and repeat. Assuming a heavy load and ignorant motorists, there's no way to avoid constant unsafe situations. As soon as you create a new safe gap, someone slides in.

So, no. It's terrible. (And I'm not even mentioning the additional gear shifts)

https://m.youtube.com/results?search_query=Merge+semi

[foobarian]

This comes up often, but you gotta think about what would happen if everyone suddenly tripled the gap they leave in front of them. The same road surface would suddenly have 1/3 the throughput. I shudder to think what kind of traffic jam / commute time that would lead to at the edges of the road network.

I do appreaciate when people drive densely packed and I try to do the same (up to a safety limit). For merging there are turn signals.

[tonyarkles]

> The same road surface would suddenly have 1/3 the throughput

At the same velocity. It's quite possible that with the increased gap and increased flow (less stop & go), you could get higher velocity out of it to compensate. Maybe not 3x the velocity, but 2x gap and 2x velocity seems within the realm of possibility (a 60mph road that slows down to 30mph because people are driving stupidly).

Edit: on the low end, this seems quite possible. Increased gaps raising the mean velocity from 5mph to 15 or 20mph.

[tonyarkles]

I'd edit again, but it's too late. This question kept nagging at me. I figured this must be a studied phenomenon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_diagram_of_traffic...

This is super interesting! As kind of expected, there's a middle zone that balances out density and velocity. In the context of what we were talking about, the fourth "Basic Statement" jumps out at me: "If one of the vehicles brakes in unstable flow regime the flow will collapse."

[saltcured]

The problem is people trying to maintain ANY fixed gap. If they learned to treat the gap as a spring and then use their mind as a damper while still maintaining safety, they can cancel out many of the pathological oscillations and standing waves that disrupt traffic flow. This task is also much easier when people learn to monitor the road further ahead than just the bumper and taillights they are following.

Following too closely removes any margin for error and so requires you to either mimic every change in speed or create dangerous conditions.

[pfultz2]

Higher density may allow for more volume but it can increase viscosity.