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Traffic jams and Cars
Ask anybody in the city, what he or she feels is an integral part of life and pat comes reply. Traffic jams. Yes, Traffic jams are so common and popular that not one person in the city can escape it. Everyone would have experienced the long wait, queues, boredom caused by it and so on. Well traffic jams are becoming a regular part of the urban life.
Traffic jams are accredited to the influx of car ownership. With the considerable increase in car ownership in the urban areas, the free space becomes a constraint and the vehicles have to ply in a designated road or highway which causes traffic jams.
Now that we have understood the concept of traffic jams. Pun intended. We in Carazoo.com will look at some of the causes of traffic jams and identify some driving methods which will help to reduce this problem. We will also look at the problems caused by sitting in traffic with the engine running.
On the city roads and by lanes where you expect to travel great distances in a short time you will start to get a slowdown of traffic. Often the traffic will come to a complete halt for no apparent reason. Enter the ripple effect which goes something like this.
We give you an example. Try imagining a driver briefly touching the brakes of his car and lo the driver behind the first driver also responds and slows his car so that his brake also gets on well. The second driver, however, has to break harder to take into account of his thinking distance. The thinking distance is the time it takes for the message to apply your foot to the break pedal to get from your brain.
Soon it's a common sight on the road as the third driver will also have to break. He will need to break harder than driver 2. The ripple effect goes on throughout the cars until cars have to come to a complete standstill. When cars stop and then have to move off the delay becomes much greater and you end up with a jam.
Traffic jams are accredited to the influx of car ownership. With the considerable increase in car ownership in the urban areas, the free space becomes a constraint and the vehicles have to ply in a designated road or highway which causes traffic jams.
Now that we have understood the concept of traffic jams. Pun intended. We in Carazoo.com will look at some of the causes of traffic jams and identify some driving methods which will help to reduce this problem. We will also look at the problems caused by sitting in traffic with the engine running.
On the city roads and by lanes where you expect to travel great distances in a short time you will start to get a slowdown of traffic. Often the traffic will come to a complete halt for no apparent reason. Enter the ripple effect which goes something like this.
We give you an example. Try imagining a driver briefly touching the brakes of his car and lo the driver behind the first driver also responds and slows his car so that his brake also gets on well. The second driver, however, has to break harder to take into account of his thinking distance. The thinking distance is the time it takes for the message to apply your foot to the break pedal to get from your brain.
Soon it's a common sight on the road as the third driver will also have to break. He will need to break harder than driver 2. The ripple effect goes on throughout the cars until cars have to come to a complete standstill. When cars stop and then have to move off the delay becomes much greater and you end up with a jam.
One of the main causes of a traffic jam are motorists known as “rubber neckers”. If there is an accident or breakdown they will slow down as they pass to have a look. This starts off the ripple effect and actually becomes doubly hazardous. As the traffic starts to slow right up the next drivers are also distracted by the events going on the other side of the road. This delays their thinking time/reaction time even more and causes more sudden breaking.
The other popular reason is attributed to traffic signals. As soon as the red light glows in the traffic signal, the ripple effect of a traffic pile up begins.
We give you tips or defences that would reduce the incidence of traffic slowdowns
1) Leave plenty of distance between yourself and the car in front. Using a marker at the side of the road count two seconds after a car passes it and make sure you cross that point after the 2 second gap. The old mantra of “only a fool breaks the 2 second rule” might be of some use here chant the mantra for two full seconds. This will at least give you time to slow up more gently without using your breaks. Dropping down a gear will help slow you sufficiently in most cases.
2) Never come to a complete halt. If it looks like a halt is coming in the traffic ahead, leave a large gap and slowly roll into this. The cars behind you will keep moving at the slower pace and you will have saved a longer delay. Truck drivers are naturally good at this as it is hard to pull away in a truck with all the gear changes required, so they will aim to keep the car moving.
If you are stuck in a traffic jam, turn off your engine. There is no point just increasing the heat in your engine and wasting fuel. Most breakdowns in jams occur due to overheating caused by running the engine. If you are in crawling traffic and you notice your engine temperature rising then turn on the cars heaters. In most cars this engine, will help to take some of the heat from the engine and can enable you to survive longer.
The other popular reason is attributed to traffic signals. As soon as the red light glows in the traffic signal, the ripple effect of a traffic pile up begins.
We give you tips or defences that would reduce the incidence of traffic slowdowns
1) Leave plenty of distance between yourself and the car in front. Using a marker at the side of the road count two seconds after a car passes it and make sure you cross that point after the 2 second gap. The old mantra of “only a fool breaks the 2 second rule” might be of some use here chant the mantra for two full seconds. This will at least give you time to slow up more gently without using your breaks. Dropping down a gear will help slow you sufficiently in most cases.
2) Never come to a complete halt. If it looks like a halt is coming in the traffic ahead, leave a large gap and slowly roll into this. The cars behind you will keep moving at the slower pace and you will have saved a longer delay. Truck drivers are naturally good at this as it is hard to pull away in a truck with all the gear changes required, so they will aim to keep the car moving.
If you are stuck in a traffic jam, turn off your engine. There is no point just increasing the heat in your engine and wasting fuel. Most breakdowns in jams occur due to overheating caused by running the engine. If you are in crawling traffic and you notice your engine temperature rising then turn on the cars heaters. In most cars this engine, will help to take some of the heat from the engine and can enable you to survive longer.
