Re:Do drivers who keep gaps in stop-and-go traffic worsen it...
by bunderbunder on Tuesday December 08, 2015 @08:30PM
(#10701270)
I think it's fixable, but only at great expense.
I have no science behind this, but I've driven in enough places to notice that there are broad cultural differences in how people drive. I don't think the difference is just in the people. It's also in the civil engineering.
For example, some places are very consistent about having nice long on-ramps that give drivers plenty of time to negotiate a merge without too much hassle, and entrances and exits are always placed on the right-hand side. My impression has been that these cities tend to have very sane drivers. Fewer traffic jams, too.
Others have exits and onramps on both sides. The ramps are often short, and you might even have the occasional short ramp with a tight curve that forces drivers to enter the highway 15-20MPH below the speed limit. These cities force a number of perverse behaviors that make driving problematic. It gets slow drivers out of the right lane because that lane is downright frantic. It also actively places drivers who prefer to drive at wildly varying speeds in the left lane, so now you've got people trying to find their place from both sides of the road at the same time. These combine to encourage a lot of passing on the right, which further mixes drivers who like to go at different speeds across all the lanes. And all that jockeying begets further jockeying, since one starts to feel like they have to drive aggressively just to hold their own.
Against that kind of backdrop, which seems to be the way American cities actually prefer to arrange themselves, I do think that no amount of education or public awareness could ever fix it. You can't create an environment that actively punishes people for behaving how you want them to, and expect them to behave that way anyway.
I have no science behind this, but I've driven in enough places to notice that there are broad cultural differences in how people drive. I don't think the difference is just in the people. It's also in the civil engineering.
For example, some places are very consistent about having nice long on-ramps that give drivers plenty of time to negotiate a merge without too much hassle, and entrances and exits are always placed on the right-hand side. My impression has been that these cities tend to have very sane drivers. Fewer traffic jams, too.
Others have exits and onramps on both sides. The ramps are often short, and you might even have the occasional short ramp with a tight curve that forces drivers to enter the highway 15-20MPH below the speed limit. These cities force a number of perverse behaviors that make driving problematic. It gets slow drivers out of the right lane because that lane is downright frantic. It also actively places drivers who prefer to drive at wildly varying speeds in the left lane, so now you've got people trying to find their place from both sides of the road at the same time. These combine to encourage a lot of passing on the right, which further mixes drivers who like to go at different speeds across all the lanes. And all that jockeying begets further jockeying, since one starts to feel like they have to drive aggressively just to hold their own.
Against that kind of backdrop, which seems to be the way American cities actually prefer to arrange themselves, I do think that no amount of education or public awareness could ever fix it. You can't create an environment that actively punishes people for behaving how you want them to, and expect them to behave that way anyway.