Jan
23
I’ve written a post about driving delays caused by people pressing the brakes too much. I described the problem with freeways coming to a crawl, with no apparent cause.
Stephen J. Beard1 and Rich Exner2 came up with a traffic shockwave illustration that clearly explains the problem.
- Renowned illustrator [↩]
- Reporter and editor of The Plain Dealer publishing [↩]
Building IT
Jot It Down
hi Rudy,
Nice explanation on the shockwave effect. As to traffic in general, I’ve always thought of it as pouring rice through a funnel instead of water, but the point is that freeways have an optimal capacity. If you go over it, suddenly the throughput drops significantly.
More importantly, I wonder what will happen in LA in the next ten years. With more and more and more cars, it will just get worse. As bad as it is to have commuters stuck, how about UPS, FedEx, the food going to our stores, etc? I guess a lot of truckers go at night, but stuff needs to get through during the day too. Hmmmmmm…
Steve, aka trade show displays
Hey Steve,
The answers in LA are: wider highways (expansion of I-5),more commuter trains (high speed train to Sacramento and San Diego), and higher gas prices.
But in the meantime, we just have to learn to drive when we NEED to, and move quicker to get out of the way.
Hey Rudy,
I agree. The only problem I see is how many people define the word “need” when it comes to their own “needs”. 🙂
~ Steve, aka “I hate traffic”, aka “trade show displays”
I like your way of expressing Traffic delay problem. You are right man poor driving is the main cause for delay. But for handling such circumstances we have to learn driving from a good trainer.