It’s always wild how traffic just… evaporates for no reason. Like who started it??
SiMo04fg on
It’s called a phantom traffic jam.
It happens when congestion is created without a real obstacle in front: a chain braking or a chain reaction of drivers is enough to generate a slowdown that spreads along the road, even if everything is free later on.
blomba7 on
Lot of times it’s rubberneckers or a recently cleared out car accident giving the impression there was no problem at all
ippomkd on
Delay in human reaction time. I’ve seen at some point a video where few cars needed to drive in circle with the same speed. After a while a traffic jam appeared.
TheMackD504 on
That’s because You are the traffic
notveryAI on
Traffic is a thing because humans have reaction time and cars have acceleration time. When the first car starts moving the next one takes some time to start moving too, the next in line takes some more after already had waited thru delay on the first one, and that delay “stacks” the further you go down the line
If you could send a signal to all drivers at the same time to start moving with the same acceleration the traffic jam would just disappear
People tailgating is what causes phantom traffic jams. When everyone is riding each others ass the slightest breaking up front snowballs into stop-and-go traffic.
Have some patience, people.
SpicyTacoTwerk on
Every single time, it’s like a magic trick. Poof! No cars, no problem.
SpellFamiliar510 on
Phantom traffic jams are wild, one person taps the brakes and suddenly everyone’s going 5 mph for miles.
XSpaartanX on
Of course it’s just a chicken crossing the road
EhliJoe on
You are not stuck in the traffic jam. You are the traffic jam.
opyoyd on
Also some people are slow. Inagine being behind a slow car now imagine being the 89th car behind that slow car.
Ebbanon on
Because idiots don’t know how to merge.
I drive all day for work, and the answer is always some stupid fools trying to weave back and forth to get ahead causing everybody to break over and over again.Â
Or assholes that won’t let people merge, because just one more car in front of them will end the world or something.Â
Or all you idiots that merge over 2miles back because the lane ends in 2 miles. You are supposed to zipper at the front. Stop being idiots.Â
CoralineRose_3 on
Always the same—traffic for no reason!
FINDERFEED on
Since there is nothing threre that’s exactly why everyone is slow, the don’t want to be heLLo?’ed or Goodbye’ed
Vast_Bullfrog2001 on
traffic snakes!
Lilgreenman3 on
Traffic is absolutely a race. The government doesn’t want you to know that.
I’m confused that no one seems to like traffic but I consistently see people not going the speed limit, not placing their car in the correct lane for their rate of speed, maintaining ridiculous football fields following distances, and not pulling up to the car in front of them at stop lights.
When you do all of these things you are literally creating traffic that isn’t even there. Street lights don’t know the three car lengths in front of you are actually empty and then stay green longer.
I see these things every day. So someone reading this does one or all of these things every day. Some of them can cause accidents but you’ll never see it in a accident report.
Bonus points for the people pulling all the way left in their lane to make a right turn like their four door sedan is a semi with a excavator on the back.
magikchikin on
Jams move through traffic like waves. There is a delay, maybe an intersection of people turning, maybe a curve where people are slowing, or sometimes just one person making a maneuver out of the ordinary, so each car behind is slowed however long the first car was plus their reaction time, then add the reaction time of every person it affects down the line. Sometimes a jam will start and by the time the wave fully disapates the original driver to cause it is long gone, or it has traveled a great distance from where the wave began.
Think like the butterfly effect, but marginally less confusing
PatchPlaysHypixel on
Solution: when there’s a traffic jam just count down to 3 and on 1 everyone goes full throttle
CH40T1C1989 on
Latency in the human reaction time… That’s how.
QuantumXyt on
Everyone here needs to watch the recently released video by BrainTruffle on the topic
DutchMitchell on
If you brake on the highway, you’re a bad driver. That’s whay my instructor taught me.
Always keep distance and release the pedal first before braking.
Available-Bee6123 on
Traffic is Nothing But Collective Human Errors
InkFerdi on
Look at it like this
If you are stuck in traffic, you can’t go faster because the dude in front of you can’t go faster because the dude in front of him can’t go faster because the dude in front of him can’t go faster because the dude in front of him can’t go faster ecc.. all of this because there are few people circulating at medium low speed (or an accident happened) which is blocking everyone
Kysman95 on
My brother in christ, you ***ARE*** the traffic
James1887 on
If there’s cars going around in a circle and someone brakes the traffic jam goes on forever
Yelwah on
Dumb and a repost
NovusMagister on
It’s called a phantom traffic jam. Its a pretty well researched phenomenon which is caused when the average distance between cars decreases below a threshold. At that point, all it takes is one person to hit their brakes to slow down, and because people are too close they have to hit their brakes harder (to prevent ramming the car in front of them). Eventually this leads to a pool of cars that are utterly stopped on the road.
Once people begin to accelerate, there’s a reaction time lag which means the cars at the back don’t start accelerating until long after the cars at the front. This means as new cars arrive they also have to come to a stop.
The result is a traffic jam that moves backwards, as the front edge starts to move and cars are added more and more to the back. The traffic jam dissipates when the number of cars joining the back becomes less than the number of cars able to leave the front.
40 Comments
It’s always wild how traffic just… evaporates for no reason. Like who started it??
It’s called a phantom traffic jam.
It happens when congestion is created without a real obstacle in front: a chain braking or a chain reaction of drivers is enough to generate a slowdown that spreads along the road, even if everything is free later on.
Lot of times it’s rubberneckers or a recently cleared out car accident giving the impression there was no problem at all
Delay in human reaction time. I’ve seen at some point a video where few cars needed to drive in circle with the same speed. After a while a traffic jam appeared.
That’s because You are the traffic
Traffic is a thing because humans have reaction time and cars have acceleration time. When the first car starts moving the next one takes some time to start moving too, the next in line takes some more after already had waited thru delay on the first one, and that delay “stacks” the further you go down the line
If you could send a signal to all drivers at the same time to start moving with the same acceleration the traffic jam would just disappear
[CGP Grey has a great video about how traffic forms](https://youtu.be/iHzzSao6ypE)
People tailgating is what causes phantom traffic jams. When everyone is riding each others ass the slightest breaking up front snowballs into stop-and-go traffic.
Have some patience, people.
Every single time, it’s like a magic trick. Poof! No cars, no problem.
Phantom traffic jams are wild, one person taps the brakes and suddenly everyone’s going 5 mph for miles.
Of course it’s just a chicken crossing the road
You are not stuck in the traffic jam. You are the traffic jam.
Also some people are slow. Inagine being behind a slow car now imagine being the 89th car behind that slow car.
Because idiots don’t know how to merge.
I drive all day for work, and the answer is always some stupid fools trying to weave back and forth to get ahead causing everybody to break over and over again.Â
Or assholes that won’t let people merge, because just one more car in front of them will end the world or something.Â
Or all you idiots that merge over 2miles back because the lane ends in 2 miles. You are supposed to zipper at the front. Stop being idiots.Â
Always the same—traffic for no reason!
Since there is nothing threre that’s exactly why everyone is slow, the don’t want to be heLLo?’ed or Goodbye’ed
traffic snakes!
Traffic is absolutely a race. The government doesn’t want you to know that.
[Like this](https://www.reddit.com/r/Amazing/s/ZC2jjzB1dl)
It’s like the traffic gods are just trolling us with an invisible wall!
lol, like the road’s playing hide-and-seek with us – where’d all the cars go up front?
A lot of time it’s road construction, a heavy load truck or a crash that cleared up before the back gets to the front
Mythbusters did an experiment to show this. The cars were driving in a circle and Jamie suddenly braked.
The slow down of the cars carried on until Jamie had to slow down again
Most people have the reaction time of a fucking rock so this is what happens
Literally just keep driving ong T_T
It’s the dumbasses that don’t let people merge. Assholes with a me first attitude.
Traffic jams happen for no reason
[https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SEgRuFpxzt8](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SEgRuFpxzt8)
Always happens—traffic for no reason!
I’m confused that no one seems to like traffic but I consistently see people not going the speed limit, not placing their car in the correct lane for their rate of speed, maintaining ridiculous football fields following distances, and not pulling up to the car in front of them at stop lights.
When you do all of these things you are literally creating traffic that isn’t even there. Street lights don’t know the three car lengths in front of you are actually empty and then stay green longer.
I see these things every day. So someone reading this does one or all of these things every day. Some of them can cause accidents but you’ll never see it in a accident report.
Bonus points for the people pulling all the way left in their lane to make a right turn like their four door sedan is a semi with a excavator on the back.
Jams move through traffic like waves. There is a delay, maybe an intersection of people turning, maybe a curve where people are slowing, or sometimes just one person making a maneuver out of the ordinary, so each car behind is slowed however long the first car was plus their reaction time, then add the reaction time of every person it affects down the line. Sometimes a jam will start and by the time the wave fully disapates the original driver to cause it is long gone, or it has traveled a great distance from where the wave began.
Think like the butterfly effect, but marginally less confusing
Solution: when there’s a traffic jam just count down to 3 and on 1 everyone goes full throttle
Latency in the human reaction time… That’s how.
Everyone here needs to watch the recently released video by BrainTruffle on the topic
If you brake on the highway, you’re a bad driver. That’s whay my instructor taught me.
Always keep distance and release the pedal first before braking.
Traffic is Nothing But Collective Human Errors
Look at it like this
If you are stuck in traffic, you can’t go faster because the dude in front of you can’t go faster because the dude in front of him can’t go faster because the dude in front of him can’t go faster because the dude in front of him can’t go faster ecc.. all of this because there are few people circulating at medium low speed (or an accident happened) which is blocking everyone
My brother in christ, you ***ARE*** the traffic
If there’s cars going around in a circle and someone brakes the traffic jam goes on forever
Dumb and a repost
It’s called a phantom traffic jam. Its a pretty well researched phenomenon which is caused when the average distance between cars decreases below a threshold. At that point, all it takes is one person to hit their brakes to slow down, and because people are too close they have to hit their brakes harder (to prevent ramming the car in front of them). Eventually this leads to a pool of cars that are utterly stopped on the road.
Once people begin to accelerate, there’s a reaction time lag which means the cars at the back don’t start accelerating until long after the cars at the front. This means as new cars arrive they also have to come to a stop.
The result is a traffic jam that moves backwards, as the front edge starts to move and cars are added more and more to the back. The traffic jam dissipates when the number of cars joining the back becomes less than the number of cars able to leave the front.