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Traffic Has a Perfect Solution. Humans Are the Problem.

CGP Grey · 44.6M views · 2016-08-31 · 4:30

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Overview

CGP Grey explains how traffic jams come from human driving behavior such as tailgating and reaction delays, and how leaving gaps and smoothing speed would reduce congestion. It also touches on self-driving cars.

On Hacker News

HN cites it as a concise, well-illustrated explanation of traffic flow, in threads on congestion, self-driving cars and driving habits.

Recommended by 6 HN people across 6 months · HN mentions 2016–2026

Topics

Transit, cities & urban planningSelf-driving & autonomous vehiclesPsychology & human behavior
Search by tags
traffic jamscongestionself-driving carsdriving behaviorphantom jams

What people said

maerF0x0 · 2026-02 · Recommendation

> You don’t own the asphalt in front of you. Correct, but you _need_ the asphalt in front of you for both safe driving and also to avoid cascading hard braking events. I also don't own the asphalt under me or behind me too, so it's kinda a silly statement tbh. This youtube talks about it: [VIDEO]

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pchristensen · 2024-08 · Recommendation

This video illustrates the principle: [VIDEO] Basically, people following too closely cause more braking, which cascades to more braking for an obstacle that was never actually there.

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mjevans · 2021-10 · Recommendation

CGP Gray's simple solution to traffic and good visuals. [VIDEO] The real simple solution to traffic is no more monkeys driving cars. Also, implicitly, fully isolate cars from human powered forms of transportation.

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Sources

Video by CGP Grey, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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