cross-posted from: https://feddit.it/post/28637207
Those who use the bike know this very well: in the city, speeding motorists overtaking other cars, only get one thing: they arrive first to the next red.
With a simple model, the author estimated the probability that one car that overtakes another, will then be reached again at a later red light. Then he estimated the probability that the same thing will happen when there are multiple successive traffic lights, as usual in the cities.
The result is that as fast as an aggressive driver goes, the presence of multiple traffic lights makes it virtually certain that a slower driver will catch up
So, if someone aggressively overcomes you, when you reach him at the next traffic light, you can tell him that it is mathematically proven that he/she is an idiot.
In addition, this study has implications for the 30 km/h city, demonstrating how in urban areas the traffic lights determine the travel times, not the maximum speed reachable between one traffic light and the next.
The original scientific article is here: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article/13/4/260310/481212/The-Voorhees-law-of-traffic-a-stochastic-model
crossposted from: https://poliversity.it/users/rivoluzioneurbanamobilita/statuses/116419204210303856
Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
Traffic is like the flow of water, you can absolutely be the one fucking it up for everybody else, be it by crashing, reordering the wait, or by making traffic out of sync with engineered timers to optimize flow.
If speed or order or rate doesn’t matter, then the science behind traffic engineers must be imaginary.
Be safe AND don’t be a fucking asshole. We are all in this together.
if people understood we are in this together we would have invested more in public transit and walkability
Imagine if you played factorio…
and some stuff on a belt was just like “You know what would make us get there faster? If I moved slower than everything else and made it hard or impossible to pass.”
And then another belt had an object that got irritated by always getting stuck behind the first one and tried to go super fast, but then crashed and outright stopped the belt.
Neither of these are good.