Tim and I drove home from Kingston yesterday, and sure enough, there was lots of long weekend traffic to contend with. During the drive I was regularly getting frustrated and I was talking with Tim, trying to understand how it is that traffic happens.
See, I understand how traffic happens in really populated areas like Toronto, but tell me, does anyone know how you can get stop and go traffic in the middle of nowhere? We were on a stretch of highway between Belleville and Cobourg that has very few towns, on/off ramps, and only one major highway that feeds onto the 401. However, we were regularly STOPPED on the highway! How does that happen? I just don't get it, there wasn't a huge influx of cars onto the road at a certain point, no bottlenecks, no accidents, just lots of traffic.
But if there's no interruption in the flow, how is it that you can get stopped so often? It was so annoying. Anyone have some insight that I'm overlooking? :P
1 comment:
Hey Laura,
The reason why traffic jams start in the middle of nowhere is simple. All it takes is one driver, whom we will name "panicky jack" to tap their brakes for no apparent reason. This causes the car behind panicky jack to have to brake harder to avoid hitting panicky jack. Then the car behind that has to brake harder, and the car behind that, and the car behind that, etc. The end result is that the cars a whole while back have to stop completely.
Thanks a lot Jack...
Tim
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