Guys! The end totally justifies the means! Now’s our chance to be douches!
Fair enough. I only saw that one study. It could easily be wrong. It could be biased. But some guy “erasing waves” based on what he sees in his rearview mirror does not really stand up to my definition of empirical evidence either…
Call it what you will, but the science we have shows it better for both me and the whole if I drive both expecting to be able to merge in and easily let people merge in front of me.
Basically drive as if everyone else is trying to make the system work too. Or, even simplier, drive nice. Why? Because while it may not be intuitive, it appears to be better to do so (for everyone involved, including self).
To me, this is a win win. I always try to be nice anyway and here we have science backing it up.
And for the funny, if you read further down on the page linked, he agrees with the original study, for the same reasons:
Ideally a merge-area will act like gear teeth. But suppose that everyone starts defending themselves against opportunistic drivers by eliminating all gaps in traffic. In that case the valid merges cannot take place either. A fight develops, and a traffic jam is created. The jam appears at the merge zone, while a huge region of empty roadway is created downstream. Sometimes this jam is the fault of people like me who panic while missing their exit and who come to a complete stop. Sometimes the jam is the fault of the huge blinking yellow arrow which blocks one entire lane of traffic during construction. But the traffic jam is ALWAYS the fault of those who refuse to let anyone merge ahead of them. “Just merge behind me.” No, that doesn’t work, since the guy behind you doesn’t want any merges either. Everyone in the whole lane is saying the same thing! It’s a solid packed wall of hostility. Poking a hole in that wall can make a difference.
Zylon
1625
It’s not just the notion of some guy. Do a search on “traffic waves”. It’s a widely acknowledged phenomenon.
But the traffic jam is ALWAYS the fault of those who refuse to let anyone merge ahead of them.
That doesn’t logically follow. The people not letting the people in are still moving as fast as they’re going to move. The only people not moving in that scenario are the people who decided to speed down the empty lane to the bottleneck.
I did read up more on it and actually really like the theory. I am sure in part, because it supports the point of the original study too…
You are not looking at as a whole. Take X number of cars. What is the fastest way to get them from point Y to Z when a bottleneck exists inbetween? Cooperation and interlocking merging with as little slowing as possible (which why when computers drive all of our cars, bottlenecks will be a thing of the past).
Now what fuels merging faster in the real world? Utilizing both lanes as much possible and letting people merge as easily as possible.
So, if you want to get through faster, you should drive as suggested by both that link from Zylon and by that study… Not like a douche, but like an effecient driver. Allow people to merge, use the extra lane, merge quickly and get through. Again, the whole and self are both helped by the same set of actions. Win win.
The problem is, driving is often approached like a competitive sport.
When my buddy gives me shit that I am on the computer a lot, even though he spends all his fucking days on Xbox LIVE!
I dont really spend much time on the Internet, probably 40 minutes to an hour a day.
I’d say I’m guilty of this, but that’s pretty much how I approach life in general.
What is it with this thread and godawful boring tangents? You people are no fun at all. I blame Warren.
Back to the topic at hand: People that cannot follow illustrated, step-by-step instructions on how to, for instance, not fuck up time zones on a shared Google calendar for an event that will be taking place in a different time zone than you’re currently in.
It definitely makes a difference for people trying to get on and off the freeway at exits immediately before the bottleneck. The tighter together people are packed immediately before the bottleneck, the more open the freeway is before it. Having a single lane wall of cars doesn’t help anyone, particularly if you’re merging right towards the outside of the freeway. If there are two lanes, people should be using both of them.
That apparently (according to some) makes you a douche bag.
I suppose that’s why it’s the law here (and other European countries, I suppose?). When people won’t be rational, we have to try and enforce it.
Easy to explain. When people nerd rages about stuff that makes perfect sense to others, they tend to defend the behaviour.
Yours is perfectly valid… although I’m guilty of it. Missed my first CES appointments by a day, because I couldn’t figure out Outlook Calendar timezones. But I nerdraged at myself over that.
Warren makes me nerd rage, too.
Zepo1a
1638
Dear Internet Explorer team.
It’s freakin’ 2011. Animated GIFs have been around since the 1990s.
Why can’t IE 8 or 9 animate GIFs without lagging them and my machine out?
Sincerely,
GIFRAGE!
Back to the topic at hand: People that cannot follow illustrated, step-by-step instructions on how to, for instance, not fuck up time zones on a shared Google calendar for an event that will be taking place in a different time zone than you’re currently in.
In all fairness, my #1 nerd rage for the past 3 years has been Google Calendar’s lack of time zone support (until recently) and, recently, their shitty timezone support. Last I checked you couldn’t change time zones for the start/end of an event, and you couldn’t change the timezone for a computer (vs. an account), oh, and they only have US timezones (unless that changed recently).
There’s a wrap place nearby called Beat Da’Wrap.
I’ve got a lot of problems with this name.
