Maximizing Traffic Flow

As much as I hate driving in Michigan (road conditions, number of drivers on the road, etc), I have to hand it to the engineer who decided to make the left turn arrow at the end of the light. In other locations, drivers get a left turn arrow at the beginning of the light, allowing cars to turn unobstructed. But then you get a few cars hanging out in the middle of the intersection waiting to turn who end up going on the yellow or red light to clear the intersection. This not only increases the risk of an accident (misjudging oncoming cars stopping at the yellow light) but can delay traffic from starting to cross once they get the green light. By having the left turn light at the end of the light signal, the entire left lane is moving. This allows the last few cars that in the other sequence would be sitting in the middle of the intersection to safely clear, because they don’t have to wait for oncoming traffic to stop and to get their car moving.

Open Road Phenomenon

Have you ever noticed on the highway that when the road curves, traffic seems to open up? I first thought that perhaps the turn itself had some impact on the positioning of cars within the lanes, but the more I thought about it, I came to another conclusion.

When driving on the highway, most of the time you can see a good distance in front of you. Because of this, you usually see a fair amount of traffic in front of you. Although these cars are pretty far away, the traffic seems heavy. However, when the road curves, especially those long winding curves, the road seems to empty. Only the cars immediately in front and visible to you make up your perception of how heavy the traffic is.

Oh the thoughts you can have during a 4 hour Sunday drive

Driving in Traffic

This might be one of the driest drawn out articles on the web, but the contents are very worthwhile. The article explains how to alleviate traffic jams. If I could summarize, I would, but it’d lose the translation. Check it out here: Traffic Waves.