There’s more to it than that - there’s a lot of research involved. Other factors involve:
- Nobody does anything at the exact same time.
- What’s a turn signal
- I’m the main character!
- Hold on my phone’s ringing
- I’m getting in front of you if it kills you!
- Shit I’m gonna be 1 minute late for work!
- Fuck you in particular!
- One snowflake fell, time to panic!
- ALL the snowflakes fell but who cares I’ve got 4wd!
- Fuck this traffic, I’m taking the shoulder!
- CRASH
- Oh shit a cop everybody slow down.
- And more!
Chief offender is the cascade effect. Basically, there is a minimum convenient distance one can follow another at a given speed in given conditions. If thee guy in front of them does anything but keep going, they should be able to deal with it without slamming on the brakes.
But if people follow more closely than that, especially because the traffic volume increases, then when car A slams on their breaks, so do cars B, C, D, E, etc. then because everyone’s reaction speeds are marginally different, by the time you get to car F, everyone’s come to a hard stop, while car A goes on, oblivious that they created a traffic jam that may or may not have been inevitable.
I agree with the cascade effect, it’s literally the reason why bad driving compounds into a traffic jam.
The thing is, if you leave sufficient following distance, someone is going to take it as an invitation to merge, so people in general, wanting to be in front, tend to follow more closely, so nobody else can get in front of them and push them further back in traffic.
So they follow too closely, someone brakes, and cascade of failure. Why they brake? Lots of stupid shit, often because someone entering the lane of traffic in front decided they’re getting in front of someone else even if it kills everyone, then brakes, and cascade… The cycle continues.
Yea that cascade effect is huge. If everyone does what they’re supposed to you really shouldn’t need brakes on the highway much. Better to move continuously at a slow pace than tailgate and have to stop and go. It takes a second or two to actually move from a stop and that adds up over hundreds of cars when you add in the delay for everyone’s reaction time.
