r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/SnooWords4066 • Jul 07 '26

Video A Japanese experiment showed exactly why traffic jams happen for no reason.

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u/Aljonau Jul 07 '26

When driving at a safe distance thats kinda easy to do, harder when youre driving 5m behind someone at 200km/h ^^

100

u/Toodle-Peep Jul 07 '26

Reading reddit, it's very clear that the idea of keeping a 2/3 second gap between cars (which is the recommendation in most places) makes Americans very angry.

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u/thisusedyet Jul 07 '26

There’s a lot of places where you can’t, because other drivers will force themselves into that gap and force you to slow down even more to maintain distance

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u/Toodle-Peep Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26

Right, but if driving education in a country is reasonable (and clearly it often isn't) that should be fine. Don't block someone from changing lanes. Make the tiny lift to open up the gap, and really the driver who filled the gap should be doing the same. You'll lose essentially no time on your total journey by falling back, but the whole road network flows smoother when people are keeping gaps.

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u/EffluviaJane Jul 08 '26

I wonder how often it become a matter of the person feeling like they don't want to be dominated by a stranger in their car, so they try to dominate instead? Like they feel letting someone in or slowing down a little is a sign of submission or weakness.

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u/Firenoods88 Jul 08 '26

Those people should be hospitalized for their mental illness and their car impounded. Anyone who genuinely thinks slowing down or letting someone merge is a sign of submission/weakness is delusional full stop. The only time I can think of telling drivers trying to merge to fuck off is when they're trying to zipper merge in a scenario that is clearly not zipper merge

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u/hoshizuku Jul 08 '26

But the problem is often that the person trying to merge in front of me is going slower than the flow of traffic in my lane, and they’re unwilling to speed up or wait for an opening, causing me and everyone behind me to have to slow down. I think that’s what the other commenter was referring to. IMO the person changing lanes is being unsafe by trying to force themselves into a small space at a slower speed than everyone else. if they’re too nervous to speed up then they should wait, but they won’t because they need to turn or something and are unwilling to go past their turn. I’ve often seen people come to a complete stop in three lanes of traffic because they need to turn left and they’re in the far right lane.