Ok let me try and make this make sense; when driving on the motorway/highway, why does traffic come to a slow or stop at some points and then speed up (with no obstructions/traffic lights etc) and flow freely with no change in the road or conditions?
If it’s clear up ahead, why do cars slow down or stop when nothing is blocking them in the distance? It’s like it slows down for no reason then just regains speed and traffic flows fine. Drives me insane
In: 8
/u/Cdurgin with the top post has it, tbh. Not much more to it.
I can’t think of enough specifics to find the correct video or even one that’s close to it, but I was a pretty entertaining time-lapse of a real highway that showed this.
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So it was from a highway traffic cam, and started super early in the AM while it was still dark out. A “normal” amount of cars, no actual traffic, everything moving smoothly at full speed, reasonable following distance between cars, etc. Not very crowded but not dead either.
A deer runs out of nowhere and the first car has to slam their brakes. The deer didn’t move immediately so they came to a complete stop by the time the deer ran back off the road. The car resumes, but that was plenty of time for the next car to catch up and so they *also* had to slow down since the lead car was still speeding back up.
Due to that slow down, now the next car has to. And the next. And the next.
The time-lapse then starts cutting hours at a time, and by the mid afternoon it’s bumper to bumper traffic for *dozens* of miles. Helicopter coverage and everything, huuuuuge backup.
And riiiiiight around that same area where the deer was, everyone is still having to slow down then speed back up. Because there was never enough of a break in the traffic for the problem to correct itself before even more cars came.
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And that’s pretty much what happens when your in dumb traffic and then get to the slowdown spot and there’s fricking nothing there.
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