A very handy, older video on YouTube from the Nagoya University, Japan (above) shows precisely how phantom traffic jams work. Researchers asked 22 drivers to drive around a simple, circular track — that’s it. Drivers started off just fine, with each maintaining roughly equal distance between the cars in front of and behind them. But sooner rather than later, errors started to accumulate.
Like a backward-moving wave, one driver in the experiment got too close to the driver in front of them, tapped the brakes, and then the one behind did the same, and the next, and the next, etc. Looking at the video, the reverse ripple motion of cars getting too close to each other is very clear and easy to see and moves backward along the track from its origin point. And this experiment, it should be noted, happened on an exceedingly simple, single-lane, slow-moving track with no obstacles, no lane changes, and no real decision-making of any kind — not on a live multilane road with a thousand variables that drivers have to follow.
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As Vox cites, such traffic jams are more likely to form when people move at fast speeds. At fast speeds people have less time to brake, and they wind up braking last second. And naturally, if the person in front of you brakes, you’ll brake to avoid hitting them. Ultimately, overeager driving plus the contrary desire for safety equals an intolerable traffic nightmare for everyone.
