How much distance would a high level of lane-changing add to a trip?

I got into a debate with a friend of mine who likes to CONSTANTLY change lanes, even when he’ll be in the left lane for but a few seconds. I know the reasoning behind it – a supposedly lesser possibility of being pulled over – but I’m just curious how much distance it would add.

Say you’re traveling on a 250 mile trip. How much distance would changing lanes 50 times add? 100 times? 250 times? (Once a mile?) Is there some formula that can be used for this? A distance a “regular” lane change adds?

A bit strange, but thought it might be an interesting math problem to try to figure out. Thanks!

i’ve thought about this a lot about this myself. you could probably figure out the extra distance per lane change by finding the the hypotenuse (i know i’m spelling it wrong, but it’s been a while since geometry) of triangle ABC, where point A is the point where the car leave the original lane, C is the point where the car ends up in the new lane at the end of the lane change, and B is the point in the original lane across from point C. leg BC would be the distance between the middle of the lanes, leg AB would be the distance in the original lane where the car would be without changing lanes. the hypotenuse AC would be the actual distance traveled with the lane change. you’d need to subtract the distance of AB from AC and that’s your extra distance.
or something like that

Aahh…a chance to do a bit of math. Cool. Let’s make some simplifying assumptions:[ul][li]You’re driving on Interstate highways.[/li][li]The highway lane is 12 feet wide (from Federal Highway Administration data).[/li][li]Your car is a point object.[/li][*]Your car can make instantaneous 90º turns.[/ul]This last point is important since it’ll set the upper boundary to the distance added. So if we change lanes (and change back) once per mile on a 250-mile journey, this means we will add a distance of 12’ * 2 * 250 = 6000’ - or, slightly over one mile (5280’) - to our trip. Since this is an extreme example, I’d say we should conclude that the distance added by lane-changing in real life would be negligible. Next question: how much extra distance do we cover by constantly sticking to the outside lanes on turns? :smiley:

While Earthling’s 90° turns give you a simple add-twelve-feet per lane change, the fact o’ the matter is your car would be traveling the distance of the hypotenuse as described by ubermensch. For a 12 foot wide line and a lane change accomplished over 30 highway feet, we get a hypotenuse of 32.31 feet, or an additional 2.31 feet of travel per lane change.

Anecdotally, let me add that when I was a cabdriver we did this on longer trips, and occasionally you’d get an extra meter drop out of it.

95’ persecond at 65 mph, assume 3 second lane change over 12’ lane, with instant wheel turns.

285 feet travelling straight ahead. 285(squared) minus 12 (squared) = 81,081. sqrt is 284.7 (if I’m entitled to this many significant figures, which I’m not). Formula of right triangle (a2 + b2 = c2, c = 285)

Less than 1/2 foot of distance added per lane change on the highway. This would increase in slower city traffic.

Anyone know how I can sub and superscript here.

The vB code tags are [ sup ] and [ sub ] (without the spaces). Hit the “Quote” button and see how this is done: a[sup]2[/sup] + b[sup]2[/sup] = c[sup]2[/sup]

[sup]This[/sup] is [sub]how[/sub].

(Click on “quote” beneath my post to see what I did.)

Bah! Beaten by an Earthling! :mad:

Three seconds for a lane change? Seems high, although I’ll readily concede 30 feet might be low (I was limited by the length of the envelope I was drawing the triangle on).