Lane switchers are transverse waves. Acceleration and braking are longitudinal waves.
I am of the opinion that lane switchers have very low impact on traffic speed, whereas people who gun the engine and slam on their brakes are most directly responsible for slowdowns.
Of course, this presumes that the lane switcher does not switch in a manner that causes someone to slam on his brakes.
Thus, if my theory is correct, attempting to smooth out the longitudinal speed waves should take priority over transversely vibrating cars that could potentially exploit that strategy to move faster than the rest of traffic, at the expense of everyone else.
I don't know how it is elsewhere, but in the Toronto, Canada area, driving behaviours have gotten really bad over the past 20 years.
We have the worst kind of lane switchers. Here, they often jump into the short lane on the right, which is reserved for cars entering and exiting the road, to cheat back in. This is a real problem, because they slow down traffic even more when they have to force their way back in.
The counterintuitive solution to this is to always make room to let those people back in. You aren't helping them "cheat", not really. You are keeping a potentially dangerous driver in front of you, where you can more easily keep an eye on them, and allowing them the opportunity to get the hell away from your car.
Comments
I was thinking the opposite - lane switchers cause "turbulence" in the flow and hence contribute to slowing everyone down.
Lane switchers are transverse waves. Acceleration and braking are longitudinal waves.
I am of the opinion that lane switchers have very low impact on traffic speed, whereas people who gun the engine and slam on their brakes are most directly responsible for slowdowns.
Of course, this presumes that the lane switcher does not switch in a manner that causes someone to slam on his brakes.
Thus, if my theory is correct, attempting to smooth out the longitudinal speed waves should take priority over transversely vibrating cars that could potentially exploit that strategy to move faster than the rest of traffic, at the expense of everyone else.
I don't know how it is elsewhere, but in the Toronto, Canada area, driving behaviours have gotten really bad over the past 20 years.
We have the worst kind of lane switchers. Here, they often jump into the short lane on the right, which is reserved for cars entering and exiting the road, to cheat back in. This is a real problem, because they slow down traffic even more when they have to force their way back in.
The counterintuitive solution to this is to always make room to let those people back in. You aren't helping them "cheat", not really. You are keeping a potentially dangerous driver in front of you, where you can more easily keep an eye on them, and allowing them the opportunity to get the hell away from your car.
Replace "lane switchers" with "high frequency traders" and this debate reads just as intelligibly.