Math Says You're Driving Wrong and It's Slowing Us All Down (wired.com) 404
A new study in IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems mathematically suggests that if you and everyone else on the road kept an equal distance between the cars ahead and behind, traffic would move twice as quickly. From a report: Now sure, you're probably not going to convince everyone on the road to do that. Still, the finding could be a simple yet powerful way to optimize semi-autonomous cars long before the fully self-driving car of tomorrow arrives. Traffic is perhaps the world's most infuriating example of what's known as an emergent property. Meaning, lots of individual things forming together to create something more complex. Emergent properties are usually quite astounding. You've probably seen video of starlings forming a murmuration, a great shifting blob of thousands upon thousands of birds. Bats flying en masse out of a cave is another example, swarming sometimes by the millions through a small exit. And scientists are just beginning to understand how they do so.
Merge problem (Score:2, Insightful)
if you and everyone else on the road kept an equal distance between the cars ahead and behind, traffic would move twice as quickly.
Yes, because no one would be merging into traffic anymore.
Re:Merge problem (Score:5, Insightful)
if you and everyone else on the road kept an equal distance between the cars ahead and behind, traffic would move twice as quickly.
Yes, because no one would be merging into traffic anymore.
If everyone kept an equal distance and followed a standard merging pattern of every other car, then it would likely solve the merging problem as well. Long ago we were shuffling decks of cards in a much less practical and inefficient way until certain physical moves were found to increase that efficiency ten-fold.
It's also well-known that impatience creates stop-and-go traffic patterns, which is but one of the many human factors that autonomous solutions will be looking to solve.
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If everyone kept an equal distance and followed a standard merging pattern of every other car, then it would likely solve the merging problem as well.
No, because the distance between the cars before the merge point would be bigger than the distance after the merge point, which contradicts the assumption that all distances would be equal.
Re:Merge problem (Score:5, Insightful)
And a slight speed adjustment allows the distance to return to normal after the merge
The problem is that a road runs at maximum capacity when speed is high and distance is minimal. A slight speed adjustment, like you suggested, has the effect of decreasing maximum road capacity.
That means that the road after the merge point not only has to deal with more cars, but also with a lower capacity to carry those cars. This lower capacity will propagate backwards to the road before the merge point. And that's how you end up with a traffic jam.
Re:Merge problem (Score:4, Insightful)
That's why we have metered on-ramps. They limit the number of cars that have to weave into the traffic. And if traffic on the freeway starts to slow down, so should the metering rate until the bottleneck relieves itself.
But if metering were actually implemented this way, people waiting would go insane. And it doesn't account for the carpool bypass, which ends up jamming traffic at the merge point anyway. In reality, ramp metering has become a penalty* for solo drivers, nothing more.
*Unless you are fortunate enough to live in a wealthy neighborhood and can call your state representative to keep metering off your own little local on-ramp. Why the hell do rich people get their own on-ramps anyway?
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*Unless you are fortunate enough to live in a wealthy neighborhood and can call your state representative to keep metering off your own little local on-ramp. Why the hell do rich people get their own on-ramps anyway?
I believe this is because it routes their traffic, the type that doesn't care about others off of the same roads of the less fortunate and people that have to actually pay attention so their vehicle doesn't get totaled by the person having a conference call in their luxury SUV with 40% visibility not paying attention to the road.
Living in Las Vegas. I have noticed that the majority of the accidents around the valley are high end or fresh off the lot vehicles. While me in my old pickup truck, has never even
Re:Merge problem (Score:4, Interesting)
I was in Bangkok a few weeks back, and it occurred to me that people riding motorcycles and scooters in that city probably get places twice as fast as cars, because at every red light, people on two-wheeled vehicles split lanes and move to the front - this appears to be perfectly legal there. Every time a light turns green, there's a flock of motorcycles and scooters at the front of the line, riding until they catch up to the next red light, where they then filter to the front again.
More time on the go, less time standing still. One hell of a recipe for getting somewhere quicker.
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Re:Merge problem (Score:4, Interesting)
So - fewer people on the road, which also reduces congestion. Win-win!
I ride a motorcycle - I'm going to die.
Then again, everyone else is going to die too.
"“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!” - Hunter Thompson
Having experienced family being involved the 21st century version of death, rotting away, demented in a nursing home, as they extract the money from their estate, then you are released from your life of catheters and adult diapers and Airecept that coincidentally ends a little after the bank account is empty - I think I'll keep riding that bike.
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And a slight speed adjustment allows the distance to return to normal after the merge
The problem is that a road runs at maximum capacity when speed is high and distance is minimal. A slight speed adjustment, like you suggested, has the effect of decreasing maximum road capacity.
That means that the road after the merge point not only has to deal with more cars, but also with a lower capacity to carry those cars. This lower capacity will propagate backwards to the road before the merge point. And that's how you end up with a traffic jam.
As we've all seen, one bad car accident on a freeway during rush hour makes the merge problem look like nothing by comparison, which tends to highlight the real problem to solve; human drivers. Maximum efficiency is the priority here, not maximum capacity. The capacity problem will hopefully be solved by removing the bullshit excuses that force humans to commute to large buildings to perform jobs that can easily be accomplished by using technology (internet/VPN/teleconference/cloud, etc.). We need to cha
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Nowadays, I signal and I'd estimate about 80% of the drivers use my signaling as an opportunity to speed up to prevent me from merging in front of them. A slight slowdown to allow someone to merge i
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In the UK the sequence is mirror, signal, maneuver. In other words, look to make sure it is clear and safe to move, then signal your intent, then move.
People who signal as a way of "asking" to be let in cause confusion. Are they asking, or are they about to move and cause an accident? If I'm unsure I use my horn, it's the only safe thing to do since the person behind is usually tailgating.
Is it different where you are? Either option would be okay if everyone just agreed on the correct use.
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In normal road conditions, there is no reason, other than poor driving, that anyone should ever have trouble merging into traffic.
Except when the gaps in traffic are already at the smallest safe distance.
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While that sounds logical, it isn't. In general, road capacity does increase as the speed increases up to about 70 km/h. Above 70km/h, the increased distance to maintain a safe stopping distance becomes a bigger factor and the capacity decreases. Therefore, this plan can work. In fact it does; it is standard practice where I live (the Netherlands) and it really does work (to some extent; road capacity still has its limits...). However, it must be said that that's after a very intensive campaign educating th
This is why (Score:4, Funny)
This is why I always pull into your lane when you try to pass me. You are screwing up the algorithm and I'm fixing it.
Re:Merge problem (Score:4, Informative)
Traffic in Mumbai (Score:3)
I was trying to get from the Domestic to the International terminal, about 5km, in a cab (along with wife and luggage). The lightrail system was under construction, which added to the mess. Traffic was gridlocked until about midnight, when it started moving. Turns out there was one traffic light that caused the gridlock. Once that went to flashing yellow, the drivers negotiated their way through the intersection.
No clickbait headlines (Score:2, Insightful)
Math says you're treating Slashdot readers wrong and it's making the internet worse for all of us.
Re:No clickbait headlines (Score:5, Informative)
If you want traffic improvement,
1) get left lane laggards to drive properly and not slow down faster traffic
2) get everyone to be expeditious when intersection lights turn green
3) teach people not to contribute to traffic compression waves by over decelerating and then under accelerating
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It's hard not to be a laggard, and always expeditious, while simultaneously not over accelerate/decelerate.
Common sense says we don't need math to show what is slowing down traffic.
Slow traffic is caused by trying to put more cars on a stretch of road than it can handle.
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Slow traffic is caused by trying to put more cars on a stretch of road than it can handle.
True in many but not all cases. If you increase throughput by managing congestion, you reduce the number of cars on the road at a given time.
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The reason math won is that you don't need to dampen spike if nobody creates spike.Theory vs reality.
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The funny thing is that the 'left lane laggards' that cause the problem are quite often speeders. I see this all the time. Someone in the right lane wants to pass, so they move into the left lane and start the pass. They are moving faster than the right lane, probably faster then the speed limit. They are not a 'laggard'. But then some aggressive speeder can't be bothered to notice (or care) that traffic is going slower, so he comes right up on the car in front and BRAKES. Now he is going slower than
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TLDR
Impression: You think there's nothing wrong with camping in the passing lane going 55.0001 MPH.
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I neither said nor implied any such thing. If you are going 70MPH passing someone going 65, a properly executed pass takes about 30 seconds. It is entirely reasonable for someone going 70 to pass someone going 65.
During that 30 seconds, someone doing 80 will travel about 500 feet more than the person doing 70. If the person doing 80 was 500 feet behind the person doing 70 when the pass started, they will encounter each other at the very end of the pass for a very short time. At any time during that 30 s
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yep, this. unfortunately, this would require at least 70% of the people driving to divert an additional 15% of their interest towards the activity of driving. how do you accomplish that?
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Meh, I don't think it'll get much better than today. Commute driving is a solid mix of people who are either:
a) Late, stressed and glued to the rear bumper in front of them
b) Bored, zoned out and mentally passing the time with something else
It's human nature that you'll have a huge variation in reaction time and aggressiveness to close the gaps. I have a good view of that near work, due to a slope, bridge and intersection on the other side you can see probably 30-40 cars at once at rush hour. You see the gr
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If you want traffic improvement, 1) get left lane laggards to drive properly and not slow down faster traffic 2) get everyone to be expeditious when intersection lights turn green 3) teach people not to contribute to traffic compression waves by over decelerating and then under accelerating
"Get other people to do stuff" is not usually a productive strategy ...
What you do have the power to change is your own driving [trafficwaves.org].
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lol i remember that site from like 1998. can't believe it's still around.
left lane laggards (Score:2)
>1) get left lane laggards to drive properly and not slow down faster traffic
With new legislation effective las October 1, the Nevada Highway Patrol is now issuing "obstruction of traffic" tickets to cars in the left lane that "know or reasonably should know" that their slow speed is obstructing traffic.
hawk
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Maybe you are just really bad at estimating distance or time. At only 10MPH, 2 seconds is 30 feet. The average city street is about that width. So, if you are stopped at a red light behind other cars, and you manage to accelerate to 10MPH before entering the cross street, the car in front of you should have completely cleared the cross street before you enter it.
Nothing more annoying (Score:3)
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It's incredible how many people can't even maintain a constant speed on a motorway/highway. If you turn on cruise control you quickly find that people randomly accelerate and decelerate.
I also find that when trying to overtake people they often speed up. I think it's unconscious, at least I hope it is because otherwise it's a really stupid thing to do.
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It's incredible how many people can't even maintain a constant speed on a motorway/highway. If you turn on cruise control you quickly find that people randomly accelerate and decelerate.
Depends where.
In NM for example, once you set the cruise control, you do NOT touch the cruise control at any time for any reason. Its forbidden. Also, you don't use the left lane because that's for slow people. And you don't use the right lane because that's for fast people.
The result is that you'll be driving along and over
Lane for automated vehicles (Score:2)
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Red necks would never buy a toyota truck. Learn your stereotypes.
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That already exists - it's called railroad.
bumper to bumper (Score:2)
In other words, there's an optimal distance. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not surprising. Spread cars out too much and you reduce the roadway's capacity. Put them too close together and you have to slow down to accommodate the driver's minimal reaction time. Having every driver choose his own distance means you can have both effects simultaneously: wasted space and insufficient response time.
Put all these constraints on and it seems obvious that you want to space cars uniformly with the minimal distance consistent with whatever statistical level of safety you demand. Naturally robotic systems will be more efficient since they require less response time -- in fact they can react to events that will cause the car in front to slow.
What would be interesting is to see the exact results they came up with: how far for how fast and under what conditions? What are the significant input parameters of the model? For example I'm sure varying the acceptable probability of a crash has a powerful effect on the optimal distance.
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Put all these constraints on and it seems obvious that you want to space cars uniformly with the minimal distance consistent with whatever statistical level of safety you demand
If all the cars are going at maximum speed with minimum safe distance between them, it becomes impossible for a single car to merge.
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That's why I'm interested in the actual details of the model. Exactly what you are optimizing and how you describe it makes a big difference.
For example widening a highway clearly increases its capacity, but if the capacity of the roads it feeds is limited you just end up turning a long skinny traffic jam into a short fat one. I've seen this happen on multiple occasions. The parameter being optimized (throughput) was the wrong one.
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You mean slamming on the breaks and cutting the wheel to try to get off the road isn't the thing to do when you don't have traction?
Re:In other words, there's an optimal distance. (Score:4, Insightful)
I always try to have the distance to the car ahead of me set so I never have to hit the brakes and when the traffic does slow up, not having more than the usual 2 second gap just before it speeds up again. I feel like this results in me maintaining the highest speed possible. Of course people usually cut in front of me, so I have to slow down more than I would otherwise.
This is only for freeway traffic, city streets and inconsistent stoplights are a whole other ballgame.
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A column of traffic can act like a one dimensional fluid. If everyone drove as you did, that fluid would be compressible -- any local variation in speed would tend to propagate slowly and continuously, if at all. But if everyone tailgates, the column of traffic acts like an *incompressible* fluid. That means when you tap the brakes, it generates something analogous to a shockwave which can propagate faster than the traffic itself is moving. In fact that's the norm in heavy traffic.
No there's no optimal distance (Score:2)
Re: No there's no optimal distance (Score:2)
They are not saying equal distance across all units like a train. Trains do not have units coming and going. Nor do detached units have a central authority setting their individual speeds.
You can have units at ...1,5,9,13... distance (there is no beginning nor end). And if a unit mergers after #1, it can become 1,3,5,9,13 => 1,3,6,9,13 => 1,3.5,6,10,13 => 1,3.5,6.25,10,13.5..., etc. (of course 1 would move forward too but did not for simplicitys sake).
With units coming and going, there would rare
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a block of a dozen or so cars on cruise control radar-locked bumper to bumper - with larger spaces in front of and behind the train where new cars can merge into.
That only works as long as there are larger spaces. Too many people try to merge, and the larger spaces get smaller, until you reach the point where you have to deny traffic from the on ramp.
And stop competing for money, too (Score:2)
The only catch to this, just as with human car drivers: Not compatible with homo sapiens, which evolution shaped over millions of years to behave competetive and give a shit about some "greater g
Can't drive faster than... (Score:2)
... speed limits.
Artificially low speed limits.
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Hey! You're fit to work for governement with that mentality.
Sunny day, empty 6 lane highway... 45 mph. Sure. "Safety first" right ?
Long been taught in driver's education (Score:2)
Seriously? It takes the IEEE to tell us of something which has been known since before "The Godfather" hit the screens??
Remember folks... (Score:2)
Set adaptive cruise control (Score:5, Insightful)
Just set your Tesla (or other modern) adaptive cruise control to, say, five car lengths, and just steer. It is far far easier than having to brake/accelerate and the hardware watches even when the driver has zoned out. No worries about hitting the idiot in front. No worries if someone merges into your lane: the car adapts.
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Oh cool you're going to buy me a "Tesla (or other modern) adaptive" vehicle?
Not everybody has that luxury.
M25 variable speed limit. (Score:2)
In the UK, the M25 (circular road around London) has a variable speed limit.
As traffic becomes heavier, the speed limit drops. But all lanes get the same speed limit. The limit is heavily enforced with cameras.
With the limit set quite low, the traffic proceeds much more uniformly, there is no advantage to changing lanes, everyone drives at the limit.
The result is that more cars can flow past any point on the road. It's another example of the effect predicted by the paper.
drive much? (Score:2)
Fixing Traffic (Score:2)
If you want to fix traffic in densly populated areas, you should avoid cars and use mass transit. Light rail, trams and modern busses can achieve higher travel speeds and higher throughput than cars. To connect less populated areas, you use park and ride systems, i.e. , parking lots with direct bus/tram/train access.
No, I'm doing it right! (Score:2)
It's just the idiots around me that are doing it wrong!
We'll do that (Score:2)
We'll do that when cars are driven automatically and AI does that, automatically.
Who is this "you" you're talking to? (Score:2)
Math Says You're Driving Wrong and It's Slowing Us All Down
Fuck you and your condescending clickbait headlines. You don't know what I'm doing.
if you and everyone else on the road kept an equal distance between the cars ahead and behind, traffic would move twice as quickly. Now sure, you're probably not going to convince everyone on the road to do that.
Damn right you're not, because it's a fucking stupid idea. You want drivers to monitor the distance to the car behind them? There are enough problems getting drivers to concentrate on the direction they're travelling in.
Forward March (Score:2)
Master of the obvious. Armies have known this for millennia. That's why soldiers maintain fixed distance and all start out together with a "forward...march" command and stop with a "company...halt". Try that at the next traffic light when you are 5 cars back. Man, if everyone just all went at the same time when the light turned green it would be awesome, but without an automated system it's just a 4 car pile-up.
With human drivers you inevitably get the "slinky" effect due to reaction time and differences in
Self-driving car transition (Score:3)
I believe this will eventually become the force driving the adoption of self-driving technology. When we get to the point autonomous cars do it right and are mixed in with human-driven cars that are screwing up and slowing down the traffic pattern for everyone else. I can see the current driving model being totally turned on its head with commuters eventually demanding that we ban human drivers.
There will also be economic pressure. Human drivers need signs, lights, and a weighty infrastructure investment. Autonomous cars need none of that expensive support.
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Better driving results in a slightly higher road capacity, but at the cost of reducing the margin for correcting small mistakes. At some point, someone inevitably will make a slightly bigger mistake, and mess it all up. The closer you get to optimal road capacity, the worse the consequences will be.
obligatory (Score:3)
Their math is wrong. (Score:2)
If you have a road containing x lanes and a flow rate of y, then you can optimize traffic based on the predictive analysis of the population and when they *screeech* OMG WTF IS THAT ASSHOLE DOING! And then the traffic flow is zero. Q.E.D
CGP Gray's -- The Simple Solution to Traffic (Score:3)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
You can't fix a system by changing *everybody* (Score:5, Insightful)
Same speed in same lane good, different lane bad. (Score:4, Informative)
Keeping constant spacing and running at a reasonable speed within a lane may be good. But holding the same speed in adjacent same-direction lanes is very bad.
In driving classes, back in the mid-20th century, we were warned against it. You NEVER were to hold the same speed as a car in an adjacent lane. (About a 5 MPH drift, with leftward lanes faster, was close to ideal.) Judging by the behavior of current drivers on California freeways that lore has apparently been lost.
Some of the issues:
- Adjacent cars form a multi-lane "rolling roadblock". Drivers behind them who wish to travel faster are impeded, collect behind them, and end up "compressed", setting up the conditions for a chain, reaction multicar pileup.
- With an inter-lane drift a driver wishing to pass a slower car soon has an opening to switch lanes and proceed.
- With the slowest lane to the right and increasing speed to the left, merges and exits require less speed change and have better timing margins, long-distance traffic proceeds rapidly with little disturbance, and lane changes are easy. Drivers have the opportunity to rapidly distribute themselves among the lanes and drive at a speed where they're comfortable.
- When driving at the same speed as an adjacent vehicle you increase your risk of collision:
- If you're in a blind spot you STAY in the blind spot for a long time. The window of opportunity for the adjacent driver to happen to make a lane change into you - or into the space immediately in front of you, becomes much larger than if you had a relative drift.
- If you hold relative position the other driver's peripheral-vision motion detector doesn't keep him aware of your presence. After a minute or so you're likely to fall out of his attention. Then, if a sudden traffic situation makes him need to change lanes suddenly (or he just wants to change lanes and forgets to do a recheck), he may swerve into you.
(By the way: The two-way two-lane equivalent of the rolling road-block chain-reaction-collision precursor is the "rat pack", a term of art in traffic engineering. It occurs when the first driver goes slightly over the limit and the second driver won't pass because he doesn't want to risk the necessary speed, but follows too closely for following cars to pass in two single-car hops. Fault is primarily on the second driver.)
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California drivers (I grew up in Orange County) once had the zipper merge perfected. Today they seem to have abandoned all discipline.
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Oh, my, some student has handed in his "study" and it made the papers. The next study that debunks it, probably won't so everyone will keep believing this one. Like that old "study" that said 80 km/h was the ideal speed for max throughput (it's not).
They probably did a simulation where all cars were following the same algorithm. Which only works if, you guessed it, all cars are using the same algorithm. Otherwise, only a huge mess results.
I can see so many things wrong with this. For starters, if I understo
Re: Follow the leader (Score:2)
Re: Follow the leader (Score:5, Interesting)
Which also takes us into arguments of age and experience. The youngest drivers usually have the best reaction time but may not necessarily make the best choices prior to needing to use that reaction time. The oldest drivers have the most experience with what traffic conditions are to be like but may have very poor reaction times. The sweet-spot is kind of hard to calculate but probably biases toward a youngish driver that has figured out traffic conditions but still has fast reaction times.
When I read the article summary it sounds like they want our cars to operate like trains, which all maintain the same distance (on account of mechanical coupling) and all go the exact same speed (again, mechanical coupling). Trouble is, with cars everyone has different destinations and therefore won't maintain the same speed. Cars slow to turn-off. Cars must enter the right-of-way. Not all drivers are driving for the same reason either, some enjoy driving performance vehicles, using that quick acceleration to get up to speed whenever they can, while others drive much more gently.
The argument for us all driving an exactly particular way rings of the spherical cows in a vacuum solution to a farming problem. Isn't going to work in real-world applications.
Re: Follow the leader (Score:5, Informative)
The sweet spot is well known - it's around 50-60. That's why insurance companies offer people in that age bracket the lowest rates - they have the fewest accidents.
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Yes, because all studies involving the average human should just use your experience and extrapolate that out to the rest of the 7.4 billion people on the planet.
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>This isn't even a new thing to study.
It isn't. When I was at college, a long, long time ago, some friends did a model and simulation of flow breakdown on a highway and showed that it followed exactly the same equations as for coax ethernet (which was the norm at the time).
Knowing these, we can understand that cars behave much like packets in a network when it comes to flow efficiency and the math has all be done. In networks however, we can increase the speed limit and number of lanes until we are at th
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How does having a tailgating car force you closer to the car in front of you? The dumbest thing to do when tailgated is to speed up. In fact, I usually slow down so that if there is an accident (more likely with a tailgater) it will be at a lower speed.
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There, solved it.
The leader is an impatient/enraged/drunken/drugged/distracted human, incapable of removing those traits that have tainted damn near every mode of transportation ever invented, which is why we're now looking for an autonomous leader.
Re: Follow the leader (Score:3)
Re: Follow the leader (Score:4, Informative)
100 mph is not nearly as dangerous as you make it out to be, especially with modern cars.
I used to race motorcycles and even drag raced both cars and motorcycles, so 100+ mph is no stranger to me. But most people do not have the reflexes to go much over 70. It is pretty simple math distance traveled versus reaction time. At 100 mph, you are travelling around 147 feet per second. That's almost 75 feet in 500 milliseconds.
And there is quite a difference when everyone is going near the same speed and when you are trying to go 100 + on a road where most people are driving at 70. A real pucker string moment when that person you are going 30 MPH faster than pulls out in front of you say 20 feet in front of you.You have less than a half second to react, brake and slow enough to not run into them.
Even way back then, I reserved my faster driving for the proper place. And of someone thinks that driving like that on a roadway where most are diving a lot slower - yeah - they are still idiots.
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Re: uhh yea (Score:2)
Well, they are just saying that rather than minimum distances, safe distances, or buffers on the prior, equal front-back distance is a better model for throughput. Not that it will prevent traffic jams. And it is meant for autonomous cars.
A centrally managed system would probably be better but an anonymous car will not be able to determine that on its own.
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Once we have car to car communication. This type of driving would be possible.
That doesn't imply it would be desirable. Cars are not only for transportation from A to B.
The day I can't go on a joyride anymore, I won't be using a self-driven queue-communicating cart; I will be using public transportation.
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That will help solve the traffic problem too.
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Says the guy that can't engrischen. You should use your native language, you might then look intelligent.
Oh, Alexander Peter Kowalski is American, and currently lives in upstate New York. He just appear to have some problems communicating rationally like most people. IANAMP, so I won't speculate on why, but I do think he needs help of a type we cannot offer here.
I still wish the owners here would adjust the lameness filter for AC posts to be a bit more strict, to avoid derailments like this. Too much use of bold, upper case, links to other slashdot posts and the trademark "P.S. =>" could easily be sto
Re: This doesn't work, although it might (Score:2)
They say that in the article, itâ(TM)s meant for autonomous cars.
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If everyone is accelerating when the car behind them gets closer all it takes is one tailgating asshole to produce a multiple car collision hasard of cars driving too close together.
Don't drive closer to the car in front of you than security dictates, even if there is a tailgater behind you.
Re: This doesn't work, although it might (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't drive closer to the car in front of you than security dictates, even if there is a tailgater behind you.
You should do exactly the opposite. If someone tailgates you, leave more distance in front of you so you can afford to brake slowly, giving the person behind you more warning time.
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Brake lights cause traffic jams. If you're on a motorway (freeway), never use your brake pedal except in an emergency. That's what engine braking (or regenerative braking on modern cars) is for. Keeping a steady speed, and only accelerating and decelerating slowly helps other drivers to match speed when merging, it also does wonders for fuel economy.
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In your environment, you may be able to, not in mine. I live in a large municipal area with over 12 million people and dense traffic. Leaving >2 times the usual inter-car distance in front of you is self defeating as other cars will just accelerate to cut in front of you& then brake to avoid running into the vehicle in front of him. You are again left with left with the usual inter-car distance or often less and a vehicle actively braking causing you to have to brake to re-establish it.
For me a tailg
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You must live in an apartment above the starbucks you work in. I understand your kind now.
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You were doing it right, now your just another Bay Aryan.
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I love tailgaters. I always just let off the gas pedal, I refuse to speed or tailgate because some asshole doesn't know how to drive safely.
Re: (Score:2)
Bad math. If you use oversimplified or wrong models, you will solve for bullshit.
That's why you have to explicitly state you assumptions, then go back over your solution checking them. e.g. sin(theta) = theta. Fine, no problem, theta better be small when all's said and done, or you've just wasted your time.
'Engineers' that don't use math, those are the ones to watch out for.