I find it’s the speeders, tailgaters, and the infuriating few that can’t seem to manage to go at the prevailing speed that cause the waves in traffic. The rest is structural - merges, construction, lane reductions, etc. The aforementioned all cause the slowdowns because they move quickly, traffic tends to follow, and end up constantly hitting their brakes riding the ass of the slower traffic. That starts a wave that ends up with traffic stopping when density is high enough.
You can’t control others moving slower than you want, bitching about lane campers changes nothing, but managing a speed/spacing that allows little or no braking does wonders to keep things moving. If only people would bother to do so.
I find it’s the speeders, tailgaters, and the infuriating few that can’t seem to manage to go at the prevailing speed that cause the waves in traffic. The rest is structural - merges, construction, lane reductions, etc. The aforementioned all cause the slowdowns because they move quickly, traffic tends to follow, and end up constantly hitting their brakes riding the ass of the slower traffic. That starts a wave that ends up with traffic stopping when density is high enough.
You can’t control others moving slower than you want, bitching about lane campers changes nothing, but managing a speed/spacing that allows little or no braking does wonders to keep things moving. If only people would bother to do so.
I think about this all the time while commuting. I yearn so much to teach the drivers this one simple trick!