this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2024
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So many people just can't understand this. In dense city streets your journey times are usually decided by how long you spend waiting in queues and barely affected at all by your top speed. Which is why you can get around a city by bike faster than by car, even though few transportation riders cruise at much more than ~16mph/25kph on the flat.
I used to think that people just hadn't thought this through and realized it, but I've had a few online discussions where it's clear some people are just flat out incapable of understanding that when there's congestion, speeding to a traffic queue most often just means a longer wait in the queue, not a shorter journey time.
"speeding to a traffic queue most often just means a longer wait in the queue, not a shorter journey time."
Total agree this this statement. I personally drive near the absolute posted limit, or below. I also don't gun it to the next red light to wait in queue.
Once you shift your driving style to minimise waiting at the next light (which usually means driving the posted limit) you will find the light turns green just before you arrive at the intersection. Traffic engineers usually time traffic signal this way as well.
This means your commute will feel less congested, you will still arrive at your end destination at the same time, and personally feel a little more calm and relaxed.
Though I do have to say if people are speeding behind you and being aggressive, let them pass you (don't speed-up). They will just get stuck at the next red, and you will just roll up right behind them with no extra time added to your arrival. Them having saved no time all well.
There's a street in my town where the lights are timed such that if you drive the 25mph speed limit you don't have to stop.
That is unless there's a bunch of idiots who insist on speeding to a red light, only to stop for five seconds. Then you have get stuck behind them and you also have to stop.
I wish there was some way to communicate to people that they're on a stretch of road like that so they know that going the speed limit is actually faster and easier than gunning it only to stop again a quarter mile ahead.
Edit: It would be super if car drivers thought streets with bike lanes worked like this. If enough of the streets actually do that, maybe it would get them to slow down next to all bike lanes.
The. Problem is too many streets where the lights are not synchronized, or even synchronized well above the speed limit
My town redid a major street during COViD to cut it from 2 lanes down to one thru lane plus turn lanes. They also synchronized the lights. It’s so much calmer of a street now, and we get through much faster.
They did a lousy job trying to add a bike lane but I guess that’s all you can hope for when the pavement was unchanged
Every major US city I have ever been in is full of dumb idiot assholes with cars that cost twice what I have ever managed to make in a year, racing from stop light to stop light as fast as possible, braking at the last minute.
There are days I have wished I could get away with making an Ocean's 11 style EMP, purely to disable every car in a 2 mile radius.
There’s plenty to show that tailgating is the entire reason for “rush hour” traffic. Not allowing others to merge safely means you end up with people being cut off or slowed down constantly. Everyone wants to be going the fastest but no one wants to go the quickest.
I leave a huge amount of space on the highway and cruise at a more constant speed to avoid this issue. It always helps traffic behind me flow better. My favourite was a guy behind me who was super pissed off and ran into the on-ramp lane to pass me, honked a bunch, floored it, and then had to slam on the brakes to avoid absolutely obliterating the car in front of me. My car is 50in tall, it’s not hard to see around but people just don’t get it. I figured it out by myself the very first time I went on the highway and yet…
It’s different at lights and stuff, of course, but only a little. Regardless it just goes to show that people have no idea what they’re doing and a whole lot of pent up rage to really make it “fun”.
George Carlin said it, but this is a great example of it in practice.
I love the quote. Unfortunately that's not how averages work.