I recently drove from San Diego to Los Angeles and for large stretches the traffic would cruise along at 65 mph and then suddenly stop dead with almost no warning. Then it would clear up a few minutes later, and the cycle would repeat. It’s amazing there weren’t giant pile-ups. I’d much rather have a steady pace, even if it’s overall slower. Besides, I was going to Los Angeles. No reason to hurry to get there.
Stop and go. My car doesn’t cruise along at 20 mph without riding the brakes, and I have doing that.
How is that even possible? Does it go that fast with your foot off the accelerator?
So I used to drive the M40/M42 round Birmingham (UK) every Friday afternoon heading home for the weekend.
Stop-Go traffic all the way, took over an hour for that section alone. I suffered through 6 months of roadworks, making it worse.
When it was all finished, they had installed speed-camera gantries every 200 meters, with a variable speed limit sign and the ability to open up the hard shoulder to traffic (with a few emergency bays). As I say, all enforced by cameras. As traffic density increased, they dropped the speed limit and added the extra lane, and traffic kept moving. Slowly, but moving. And the average time to pass through that section of motorway dropped from over an hour to under 40 minutes at a steady 40 mph.
So, “Steady-but-Slow” wins my vote.
For 15% I’ll take the stop and go. I’d take steady and slow for a 5 minute penalty but no more.
stop and go seems to increase the rate of minor fender benders…i live near the 101 in Ca. and as the volume of traffic goes up around the morning rush hours, it seems inevitable that these minor accidents occur, which then snarls things even more…
When I drive I try to even out the stop and goes, braking early, but not hard, coasting slowly to smooth out the gaps…or I will follow a tractor trailer rig, as thats how they drive as well. The real tricky question:rolleyes: which lane should I drive in? ha!
Fast idle, huh?