Maggie's Farm

RE:Guess what causes traffic jams.

The writer at Neatorama, and the writer he references at the Telegraph, have no idea what the fellow studying traffic said, but as in all such matters, are fully prepared to offer the opinion that everybody but themselves is stupid.

Very few people know how to read for actual comprehension any more. The point that is being made in the study is a sophisticated one.

As usual, if you know anything about a topic and then see it covered in the newspaper, you realize that not only is the newspaper ignorant of the topic (which should not be a problem, they are not hired to be experts on anything) they are not interested in the topic. They simply hold certain preconceived notions that they wish to trot out, and look for any opportunity to do so.

The subject material is discussing a phenomenon that is very complex. Why does traffic go from crowded but moving to stopped and back again, over and over? Saying "duh, there's too many cars" is an imbecilic take on it. Why not say the road is the problem? If the road was never built there would be no traffic jam, right?

Study a "limited access highway." Why would they limit access to a highway? All those people want to get on it, why not let them do it anywhere they want? Because it causes slowdowns as the people are metered into the volume of the traffic. If "too many cars" is the only explanation, then traffic would slowly build as additional cars enter the road, and your speed would slowly diminish. That does not happen. There is an almost immediate tipping point from cruising along with a lot of cars around you and being stuck in traffic. That's what they fellow was studying. It's not simple.

Traffic manifests itself like an accordion. All sorts of regulations and structures and human behaviors affect this and must be taken into account by highway engineers, law enforcement, and so forth.

If the Japanese scientist gets tired of being mocked in the papers for working on things nobody cares to understand because it's complicated and cars are of course evil and people are sheeple driving evil cars filled with sinister oil, he can always change his research to "Why Global Warming Causes Traffic."

He'll get a Nobel freaking prize for that one, and his numbers won't even have to add up.