Traffic Has a Perfect Solution. Humans Are the Problem.

Stop/go is bad. Gliding is better for the collective and for your fuel efficiency. CGP Grey has a great video on traffic flow: [VIDEO]

[CGP Grey did a video on this]( [VIDEO] ). Your goal, as a driver, should be to try to maintain equivalent distance between your car and cars in front of you and behind you.

CGP Grey did a really nice, concise video on the topic of traffic and he addresses your point in the first 30 seconds. Coordination, not cars, is the problem. [VIDEO]

CGP Gray's simple solution to traffic and good visuals. [VIDEO] The real simple solution to traffic is no more monkeys driving cars. Also, implicitly, fully isolate cars from human powered forms of transportation.

This video illustrates the principle: [VIDEO] Basically, people following too closely cause more braking, which cascades to more braking for an obstacle that was never actually there.

> You don’t own the asphalt in front of you. Correct, but you _need_ the asphalt in front of you for both safe driving and also to avoid cascading hard braking events. I also don't own the asphalt under me or behind me too, so it's kinda a silly statement tbh. This youtube talks about it: [VIDEO]

The more human drivers that are replaced by software, the less congestion there will be on the roads. It's delays in human reaction times which cause cars to back up on roads and take forever to get through intersections. [VIDEO]

what is the validation strategy to show where driverless cars can quantifiably improve? One big way in which automated drivers could improve traffic: By not being a jackass. I remember at one point driving down Westheimer, which is four lanes wide and one of the major thoroughfares of Houston, when I had to slow down for someone making a right turn to merge into traffic into a middle lane while their head was buried deep into the passenger side footwell looking through their stuff. Then, there are the people who feel like they have to tailgate you within 6 feet during rush hour traffic on the highway. Also, the people who won't let you in for some personal justice you can't possibly understand. It would only take a smallish fraction of cars implementing the "stay between" algorithm that CGP Grey mentions in his video to significantly improve traffic. [VIDEO] I've implemented this algorithm manually. (Much easier to do since I have the instant accelerator response of an electric car.) It does seem to improve traffic flow. Also, jackass tailgaters are sometimes confused by this, and decide to pass.