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Seattle Driver Pwns Road, Says You Can Too

Started 1 year ago by DP
Latest reply from casaboba

DP
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGFqfTCL2fs

This guy has a theory — or is it just a delusion? — about how he can single-handedly prevent traffic jams in the Emerald City. As I think about his philosophy, I see certain parallels between the way people behave on the road and the way they behave in other spaces. Cyber spaces, for example.

Ahem!

This story is related to West Seattle for the following reasons:
- It's about cars, and there are lots of cars in West Seattle.
- It's about people, and there are people doing all kinds of things in the cars of West Seattle. (Driving too fast. Driving too slow. Breastfeeding.)
- It's about Seattle, which is very, very close to West Seattle. So close, in fact, that the Governor of Seattle actually claims that he can stand in his back yard and see it!
More info on how you can ride the "Traffic Waves" phenomenon that's sweeping the I-5 corridor: http://www.trafficwaves.org/
Posted 1 year ago #
JoB
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sure.. a guy does this it's a groundbreaking transportation theory

a woman does it and she drives like a little old lady :(

this little old lady has been driving like a little old lady and sailing through traffic jams for a long long time :)

Posted 1 year ago #
metrognome
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I bet if there were also a camera pointing behind him, you would see that most of the people cutting in front of him are people who are tired of driving behind someone doing 20 mph on the freeway.

There is something to be said for leaving some extra space and reducing the high-speed, sudden stop jackrabbiting that increases the number of accidents (as has been demonstrated by the new smart highway features WSDOT has recently implemented), but I think he takes it a little too far:

"A total 35 crashes occurred in the seven-mile stretch between Tukwila and Interstate 90 from Aug. 10 to Nov. 1, compared with a range of 100 to 140 wrecks between Aug. 10 and Nov. 10 the past five years ..." (from an earlier thread.)

Also, if he is driving alone, he illegally pulled into the HOV lane before it became the Express Lane off-ramp.

Posted 1 year ago #
CMP
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I would drive like this all the time on I-5 South around Federal Way and Tacoma en route to Portland. Instead of constantly speeding up and slowing down, I just drove one slow speed so as to avoid stopping all the time. Speeds were fluctuating from 40 mph down to 5 and that just drives me bonkers b/c I know it's someone up ahead driving like a moron trying to fill a gap. I swear if more people drove a manual transmission there would be less stop-and-go traffic b/c they'd all be tired of shifting frequently. Anyway, it's an interesting technique and I recommend more people try it out some time. Or try looking more than one car length ahead (what's the recommended distance, like 1/4 mile minimum?)...what a concept!

Posted 1 year ago #
Julie
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This is my basic approach. Like CMP, my goal is not to have to slow down or speed up, and most especially not to have to stop. So I keep a very long distance between my car and the next, and try to anticipate slowdowns so that I can adjust my speed very gradually. I've found if I try to grok the pace of the whole _group_ for some distance ahead, and don't just try to match the speed of the single car immediately in front of me, I'm able to make changes slowly enough that I seldom need the brake. It does require close attention.

Many times, the driver immediately behind me does not seem to get impatient and pass. I don't know if they realize my strategy or simply aren't paying attention. I've also noticed that the cars that do whip out and pass me end up pretty much in the same cohort many miles down the road. ("Hurry up and wait!") But they've wasted gas and brakes getting there....

Bill Beatty, who did the video, used to run a WONDERFUL techie junk shop in Ballard. Best place to get neodymium magnets, but sadly now gone.

Posted 1 year ago #
singularname
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How cool. :-> This is my pal Bill Beatty. I've driven as he describes and ... it works 90% of the time. You keep moving and you remain relaxed and you get "there" in the same amount of time - 2 minutes max. It's good to read here that other folks have figured this out, too.

@metrognome: Yes, it drives many people insane, but not because you practice this on a road with flowing traffic and are being an obnoxious slowpoke: The traffic is going roughly 20 mph or less anyway--instead of going 20, stopping, waiting, 10, stopping, waiting, etc., you just keep on driving. His video would have been more effective if he'd done it on, say, the evening Redmond/Seattle commute. (My philosophy on anyone raging behind me who has a problem with that can just help themselves to driving straight into a guardrail whenever [that's not directed at you, just to be clear]).

@DP: The only thing delusional about Bill is that he is one of only a handful of people I've ever met who is completely devoid of negativity as much as is humanly possible. We use to volunteer together at a museum where the people were bona fide nuts; I'd always want to kibitz about the insanity with him, but didn't because he set such a great example of just accepting people for who they are.

For more of Bill's stuff, check out http://www.amasci.com. He has a great first Fridays Weird Science Salon at the old Immigration building. He's an out-of-the-box genius, perhaps the world expert on Tesla, and is fantastic with kids. He's been an excellent mentor for my son.

Anyway ... was compelled to give him a kudos and a plug. :->

Posted 1 year ago #
DP
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singular: Thanks.

Need some company on one of the First Fridays Weird Science? Gimme a jingle.

–David

Posted 1 year ago #
redblack
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i will modify the constant-speed theory a little, though, by saying that, having a small stick shift car, i don't have to leave a huge gap in front of me to match the flow of traffic without constant braking and accelerating. but i leave bigger gaps if i'm behind SUV's because i can't see what traffic ahead is doing. my theory is to follow the car two or three lengths ahead - if i can see that far.

and i leave comfortable following/braking distance for myself without necessarily inviting line-jumping by the nascar-school-of-driving crowd.

Posted 1 year ago #
JoB
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singularname...

thanks for the insight and the link..
i have spawned a family of nerds who will immediately immerse themselves in that website :)

so this first friday salon???
do you have to know someone to go?

Posted 1 year ago #
singularname
Member Profile

@David ... Stupidly, I avoid it, 'cause my ol' boyfriend goes regularly, and ... and ... just don't want to deal with that awkward thang. Dumb, I know. I'll try to track a DorkBot or a They Shall Walk event and throw that out here when it comes up. ... Saw your post on Eritrea. Liked it. I "discovered" that country when I got to know the "coffee woman" at Safeway a few years ago. I think she got sick of me asking questions.

@JoB ... Absolutely open to everyone. Very welcoming group. It's hosted at the Seattle Museum of the Mysteries, which is now in the Immigration Building. Bill is the star no doubt. Sometimes Monty Reed shows up (check out http://www.theyshallwalk.com), and his story and robotic walking device for paraplegics is absolutely fascinating--sometimes he brings the latest prototype. There's a few other highlights. And then there's the "oddballs," a couple of old men in suspenders, a few teenage guys drawing robotic specs in the corner, maybe the crop circle expert who gets kinda cranky if you question him too much ;->, the sad (IMO) guy trying to demonstrate his latest alchemy discovery (this is kind of where "human psychology" becomes the fascinating part :->), and on and on. Very unique library right there, too, that would always occupy me during a low point. Plan on combining it with, say, Dim Sum in the ID, so if I've led you astray you can't totally hate me. :->

Posted 1 year ago #
BigPhil
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An *individual* doing this is a hazard to other drivers, because the leading cause of highway crashes is speed differentials. He's causing an enormous differential that makes people go around him to do the legally allowable speed, coming from whatever he's doing (40?) changing lanes and accelerating to the right 20 to 30 miles per hour.

HOWEVER, traffic engineers have understood this for decades and it is effective when done systematically. Why do you think I-5 ramps the speed down from 60 to 45 as traffic builds up? By lowering the maximum speed, people slow to an averaged speed greater than they would if they came in at 60 and had to slow to whatever the prevailing speed was. Even as bad as people claim Seattle traffic is, the N/S I-5 corridor is one of the fastest metropolitan commutes in the nation. The mean speed is something like 36 miles per hour, which is amazing when you consider the volume of cars that travel it each day.

Posted 1 year ago #
casaboba
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Got to give Bill Beatty credit for trying to solve a problem. I think I may have "flipped him off" a few times when I lived on the east side. Forgive me Bill. Now I know that there was a "method to your madness."

Posted 1 year ago #