I am that autonomous vehicle that always heavily dampens the stop and start flow. Ive been doing this for decades, its not hard just look ahead at traffic and stop being fixated on the vehicle directly in front of you.
Do the same, not least of which because I drive stick and otherwise I’d have an even more massive left leg. If you make me keep clutching in for no reason I will give you such a kicking. And believe me, if I kick you you’ll stay kicked.
It makes people behind you get super pissed off sometimes, though, which is hilarious to watch. I suppose they honestly believe that trying to crawl up the tailpipe of the car in front of them will make the other half a million cars in front magically go faster somehow, or something.
When people get impatient and honk at me to move when I can only scoot a few feet, I hit the brakes and come to a full stop while traffic keeps inching. Maybe I’ll let another car in our lane,maybe not. Either way, we will both be leaving traffic at the same time whether I’m an inch away from the car ahead of me, or 30ft. If I can get out and walk faster than traffic, there’s no point in getting pissy over cars not squeezing in every inch they can.
It’s a game I play too. Sometimes you even get lucky with terrain and you can see the whole period of a wave and determine a speed to nullify it entirely. So satisfying.
Mythbusters did this, taking enough cars for one lane each in rush hour traffic, plus one car that was allowed to weave.
The weaving car was quicker by a not inconsiderable margin, so they kind of stumbled over the conclusion saying that yes, weaving is faster, but you probably shouldn’t.
I see the same on my commute, but it isn’t random. The same lanes consistently move faster between the same stretches every day. If you know how and when to merge, you can shave a significant amount of time off your drive.
I have a 100 mile round trip commute that I’ve been doing for over a decade and think I have enough real world experience to say that it’s really just dumb luck as to whether weaving will get you ahead or not based on the layout of traffic at any given moment.
I used to do it more often but wound up getting boxed in enough times to lose all my progress and these days I don’t really care if it takes me an extra 5 or 10 minutes of travel time. I pretty much now reserve it for situations where some douchebag wants to act like the hall monitor of the road and obstruct the passing lane by refusing to pass cars in the center lane “because I’m already going five over!”
I’ve personally found that weaving is definitely faster, but you have to be strategic about it. If there are three or more lanes, often people will weave between the two left-most lanes (right-most if you live in one of those weird countries where people drive the wrong way), thus clogging up those lanes. I find that if you stick to the ‘slowest’ lane you actually end up going faster, especially on highways because there are cars in that lane trying to get off and clearing space in front as you go. This falls apart when you have a very busy exit, but usually you can avoid it by looking at traffic on waze or google maps.
I’ve seen something similar, they did a race between one person trying to go as fast as possible and another person sticking to a single lane. The weaving person was like 2% faster but was totally exhausted.
Reminder that 2-wheelers are significantly resistant to traffic jams.
Not immune, but you need like 10x more bikes than cars to create a traffic jam, and even when the cars create one on their own, the bikes are able to flow around, at reduced speed.
The whole becoming a meat crayon issue is a deterrent though.
Given that the majority of motorcycle crashes are single vehicle incidents, you can drastically reduce or even eliminate your potential for becoming said meat crayon by not riding like an idiot. Protective gear is also a must for situations beyond tootling around the inner city at ~25 MPH, which seems to be the majority of southeast Asian riding, for instance.
Your second biggest risk is being hit by some blissninny in their massive SUV, either rear ending you at a stop or blithely turning left (or right, depending on your country) across your lane of travel right in front of you. These possibilities are mitigated by everyone else being on a bike, too.
Your second biggest risk is being hit by some blissninny in their massive SUV, either rear ending you at a stop or blithely turning left (or right, depending on your country) across your lane of travel right in front of you. These possibilities are mitigated by everyone else being on a bike, too.
Sounds good. Let me know when you’ve convinced everyone on my commute to do that.
That’s what I’m working on right now!
- Pedestrian: peasant
- Cyclist: rogue
- Scooter: pugilist
- Motorcycle: evasion tank
- Sedan: barbarian
- SUV: paladin
- Truck: tank
- Road train: raid boss
Wear protective gear. I have a leather jacket when I’m going fast and on cool days, but sneakers, jeans, and a rain jacket have saved me from minor injuries a few times riding around town at <60kph.
I know people are going to yell at me for not wearing a full tracksuit and boots you literally cannot walk in, but it’s Vietnam, anything more than crocs, shorts, a t-shirt, and a plastic baseball cap is pretty heavy gear here.
I have been meaning to buy some sturdy boots I can wear both on and off the bike tho, maybe I’ll pick some up next time I’m in China.
Two wheels are far more common in SE Asia, people know how to behave with them in traffic. Not so much in the US.
True, but the insane injury rate for bikes in the US is overwhelmingly a skill issue; almost half of deaths have alcohol in their blood, most are single-vehicle from bikes taking a turn too fast.
2 wheels includes bicycles and ebikes on sidewalks, though thats not always feasible.
Oh absolutely, a large proportion of motorcycle injuries in the US are with unlicensed riders, too - we’re talking about people who make bad decisions. it’s no surprise that extends to riding skill.
What made you move to Vietnam? (I assume you aren’t Vietnamese)
I didn’t move here, I bounce around Asia while working remotely, though I usually spend a little over half the year here.
The food, prices, and people/culture make up for the language being literally impossible for me and the weather being pretty tough outside the highlands and some mountains north of Hanoi. Some rain gear and I can deal with 4+ hour motorcycle trips in pouring rain, but there’s nothing I can do about walking outside and instantly sweating through my shirt.
Interesting. What made you start a nomadic lifestyle like this? Do you do it alone? Do you think you’ll ever settle down?
Living in America was killing me.
I travel alone, but I make acquaintances everywhere.
Maybe I’ll settle down some day. The longer I stay in software engineering the more I long to leave it and become a mushroom farmer in northern Japan.
Not sure what the rest of the world is like. Here in the UK, far too many will want everybody else to follow that rule whilst they cut and slice their way forward.
I feel like we all know this. This CGP Grey video is 9 years old.
The CGP Grey video with the conclusion of “don’t do anything, it’s impossible to solve, robots will save us”? Yeah, I wonder why no one’s done anything to understand/ change our trajectory because of this.
/s
Also, this is you suffering from the curse of knowledge. This is common knowledge… to you. It is not common knowledge. Like, not even a little bit. The opening of Office Space has the protag languishing in traffic that he is overwhelmingly contributing to by switching lanes as soon as the one next to him starts moving, but it’s never acknowledged that that’s what he’s doing cause, again, that’s not common knowledge.
