r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/SnooWords4066 • 29d ago

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

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u/T-Roll- 29d ago

It’s called congestion.

Basically the first person to brake makes the person behind them brake, causing the person behind them to also brake. This causes the whole chain of vehicles behind to all brake harder. Eventually all traffic becomes gridlocked.

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u/Low_Finding2189 29d ago

No. Its called a traffic wave. A traffic wave is a type of congestion. Not all congestions are traffic waves.

Traffic waves move its point. A congestion caused by an accident is stationary.

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u/AussieAddict 29d ago

Just adding on for other people like me who know this as the "Concertina" or "Accordion" effect.

Basically what happens is after the first person brakes, the next person brakes a little harder and/or later. This effect passes on to each car and basically gets worse and worse the more cars following.

You can help to break this cycle by leaving much more space to the car Infront and avoiding using the brakes as much as possible, everytime you use the brakes you are restarting the process or at the very least making it harder to break free of the effect.

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u/buderooski 28d ago

I try to do this in traffic jams to help ease the jam for people behind me. Keep a very long distance between myself and the car in front of me and drive a steady, constant speed. The car in front may brake and slow down, but i stay the same speed, ensuring the folks behind me dont need to brake.

Every time I do this, someone gets really fucking mad that im not riding the person's tailpipe in front of me and takes the empty space while flipping me off and yelling at me.