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Traffic Waves

wbeaty · 1M views · 2008-07-27 · 7:02

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Overview

A short video from the trafficwaves.org site showing how traffic jams and standing waves form, including the fight between cheaters and blockers at an exit-lane backup. It also touches on how individual driving behavior affects the flow.

On Hacker News

HN likes it as a fun, clear explainer of traffic waves and of the benefits of leaving gaps while driving.

Recommended by 5 HN people across 5 months · HN mentions 2013–2022

Topics

Everyday physics & science demosTransit, cities & urban planning
Search by tags
traffic jamsstanding wavesdrivingphysicszen driving

What people said

wildrhythms · 2022-04 · Strong recommendation

One of my favorite videos of all time on this topic: Traffic Waves [VIDEO] (Not new information, but a fun video, and it's something truckers have known about for decades)

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TheSmiddy · 2018-12 · Recommendation

I leave massive gaps constantly now, it lets me see farther ahead so I can switch lanes when I see a problem coming and my average trip time is definitely shorter because of this. I really like this video for describing some of the advantages of "zen driving": [VIDEO]

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tobmlt · 2018-09 · Recommendation

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: [LINK] 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) [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by wbeaty, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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