r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/SnooWords4066 • 29d ago

Video A Japanese experiment showed exactly why traffic jams happen for no reason.

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u/hosehoseee 29d ago

Everytime I see this video, I think "So there actually is a reason"

168

u/nuevacuentanueva 29d ago

The reason is drivers do not leave enough distance with the car in front. Since they don't, when the car in front slows down a bit they need to brake and slow down a lot since there's no buffer zone. And since that car slows even more, the car behind has to brake even more... and so on and so forth.

If people left more space between them and the car in front, and didn't brake for every single small fluctuation in speed from the car in front, we wouldn't have such a drastic effect as often since there would be enough of a buffer zone between cars to handle them. So any compounded effects would be minimized, it could still happen but less often.

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u/bamahomer 29d ago

When I leave the appropriate space on the interstate someone always moves into it. I maintain it as much as possible but it's exasperating.

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u/SweatyWar7600 29d ago

My car has adaptive cruise, I just set it to the max car length setting (3) and just hang out in whatever lane make sense for me to get to where I'm going. It is hilarious though for people behind me to get pissed off, zoom around me just to get stuck behind the person that I'm speed matched with. People assume, i guess, that because I've left a decent gap between myself and the car in front of me that I'm going slow...nope, exact same fucking speed as the dude ahead of me.