Keeping Space on the Highway

For John, BLUF:  Don't tailgate.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Stop Tailgating, It Only Makes Traffic Jams Worse

From Road and Track, by Reporter Avery Thompson, 17 December 2017.

Here is the lede plus one:

If you’ve ever been stuck in traffic, you might have tried to go faster by tailgating the car in front of you.  Instinctively, you probably know that tailgating doesn’t help you get where you’re going any faster, but it’s hard to overcome that urge to drive as close to the car in front as possible.

New research from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory not only confirms that tailgating doesn’t work, but demonstrates that it actually makes the situation worse.  Tailgating triggers traffic jams and makes traffic move more slowly.  As an alternative, the MIT researchers suggest the best course of action in traffic is to maintain an equal distance from both the car in front of you and the car behind you.

I don't know if this is going to sell in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.  For one thing, Democrats are, deep down inside, anti-science.

Back in the late 1950s my Father told me about an experiment conducted by the City of Long Beach Safety Council.  They sent two cars north on Atlantic or Long Beach or Pacific, one, with one driver to follow all the rules and keep with traffic and the other to dart in and out of traffic and do whatever he could to get ahead.  They ran north a couple of miles, to Willow or Wardlow, and both arrived at the same time.

Oh, and don't bunch up at traffic lights and left turn lanes, because you need room to maneuver out of the lane in case some Jihadist decides to start shooting people in cars.  The rule of thumb is to be able to see a small sliver of the road behind the back tires of the vehicle in front of you.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff