TRAFFIC WAVE EXPERIMENTS
TRAFFIC WAVE EXPERIMENTS:
My first 'experiment': accidentally erasing waves!
Once upon a time, years ago, I was driving through a number of stop/go traffic waves on I-520 at rush hour in Seattle. I decided to try something. On a day when I immediately started hitting the usual 'waves' of stopped cars, I decided to drive smoothly. Rather than repeatedly rushing ahead with everyone else, only to come to a halt, I decided to try to move at the average speed of the traffic. I let a huge gap open up ahead of me, and timed things so I was arriving at the next 'stop-wave' just as the last red brakelights were turning off ahead of me. It certainly felt weird to have that huge empty space ahead of me, but I knew I was driving no slower than anyone else. Sometimes I hit it just right and never had to touch the brakes at all. Other times I was too fast or slow. There were many 'waves' that evening, and this gave me many opportunities to improve my skill as I drove along.
I kept this up for maybe half an hour while approaching the city. Finally I happened to glance at my rearview mirror. There was an interesting sight.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, June 16, 2005 at Thursday, June 16, 2005.
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