Traffic Waves and how to help everyone in a traffic Jam. Main site: http://trafficwaves.org/ Watch at 0:01 to see the fight that causes this exit-lane backup. (Not the worst backup I've seen here though.)

On Seattle I-5, this left exit-only lane is usually backed up by a 1/2-mile during rush hour. The left exit ramp leads into the high speed "Express Lanes" under the city. But if it's jammed, you'll lose more time in the jam than you gain from getting on to the express lane. Also, if you miss getting into that lane early, then you're screwed, since nobody in the row of 200 cars will let you in. Merging drivers coming in from righthand ramps are blocked by those already in the jam. And while stuck in that jam, you have to sit in line for many minutes, driving like 2MPH. Just a few drivers occasionally force their way in aggressively, but that nearly halts the exit-lane flow.

BUT ...if I let ten cars merge ahead of me as I approach the jam, like magic the whole thing evaporates, and everyone takes off at high speed. Sometimes! (It doesn't work every time.)

Unfortunately this video can't show you the view from above. Also, you can't see behind me, so you can't see that my "hole" is the only one in a very long row of cars. Also you can't see the size of the reliable daily jam that was there on every other day, or the jam ahead of me before I arrived and started draining the jam by letting people merge.

Note that letting some cars get ahead of you is NOTHING, it doesn't slow you down. On a 30min congested commute at 65MPH, 2sec between cars, if you instead drove 5MPH slower than the rest, how many other cars would pass you? Seventy five! In other words, you're only a "Slowpoke" when a stunningly huge numbers of cars pass you. On the same commute, letting a few (10) cars merge will slow you down INSIGNIFICANTLY: by 20sec out of 30min or less than 1MPH slowing (64.5MPH, not 65MPH.) Ten cars one way or another is too small to matter. If it bothers you, then why not change your alarm clock and get up TWENTY SECONDS EARLIER! Or if set for five minutes earlier, you'll be able to let a couple hundred cars merge ahead of you.

Conversely, if you want to drive significantly faster than everyone else, then you need to pass 50-100 other drivers to shorten your commute by a minute or two. If you only managed to pass a few cars, that's called FAILURE, and your speed wasn't increased enough to matter.

.

Note: Trolls & spammers blocked immediately. Zero tolerance.