Traffic – Discovery through observation

I have made it known on quite a few occasions that I love to people watch. So much can be learned by simply observing people, especially when they are not aware they are being watched. Groups like Improv Everywhere perform, en masse, large “stunts” to simply cause a reaction in people (does it technically qualify as art now?) To me, it is always amazing to see how everyone reacts to what is going on around them. For a great example check out the Freeze they performed at Grand Central Station in New York.

I also, like everyone else, I am sure, hate traffic, with a burning, fiery passion. My people watching also extends to the road, and I have seen everything from makeup being applied, to newspapers being read, to hair being done. The latest incident, the one that brought me to write this post up is what really did it for me. I noticed traffic was starting to back up around this one car on the highway, cars behind this guy were going slow, and trying to get around him, cars to the right and left were passing him with caution. Getting closer, I peeked over into his car, passing I noticed the following: The guy had a dog on his lap with its head out the window and had one arm around the dog to hold him in while he drove with his wrist/forearm on the arm so he could text message/use his phone. I was floored, this guy was cruising along with minimal control of his vehicle at around 50-55MPH on a highway where people normally cruise at 70-80MPH.

After passing him I thought to myself “Man, he is going to get creamed one of these days” and my mind began to drift off into thoughts about traffic in general, and that pre-cell phone and the retardation of the human race, there was still traffic. Sure, some of it is due to sheer volume or an accident, but what about those times when, for no reason at all you have to stop for no reason. My assumption was always that someone had to jam on their brakes or cut across many lanes of traffic, causing someone else to do the same, but it was never something I could prove. Searching around on the internet, it turns out a Japanese study proved just that.

Called a shockwave traffic jam, these are caused when someone gets too close to the car in front of them and slows down, causing a “shockwave” behind them. To be able to observe this phenomenon is pretty cool, as it really illustrates the differences in people as a whole. All drivers were given the same set of instructions “Cruise around the track at around 30KPH (18.64MPH)” yet someone still managed to get too close (by their own judgment) to another vehicle and had to slow down. At higher speeds, I would imagine the slowdown would be even greater in relation to the speed they were going, causing a more noticeable change. That slowdown would also shockwave back as you saw in the video. So for example if Driver A slows down from 75 to 60, Driver B (behind driver A) now has to compensate for Driver A going 60 and slows down more, say to 50. Driver C, behind B, now has to compensate for their change from 75 to 50 and go ever slower, etc.. That would continue until you get the near stops we see in the video and experience in life.

The truth is that despite all that we have in common, including fears, dreams, hopes, etc we all still react differently to the same set of stimuli. So traffic jams that start for no reason will continue to happen. People not acting or reacting as you would in the same situation will not stop, and the sooner we can accept and understand that fact, the happier I think we can be as a whole. We often forget that we are really not the same, at least in our brains, and it is unfair to get angry at someone for being who they are (doing obviously stupid things aside, like any of the examples I gave above). Sure it causes us an inconvenience at the time but try to remember when you, maybe, did something silly by other peoples standards (like running away from a little bug or something). In the end, we all die, so why stress ourselves out over relatively minor things in life? We should really enjoy as much of life as we can while we are here.