Rude Drivers Reduce Traffic Jams

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday July 29, @11:49AM
from the earning-that-one-finger-salute dept.

BuzzSkyline writes"Traffic jams are minimized if a significant fraction of drivers break the rules by doing things like passing on the wrong side or changing lanes too close to an intersection. The insight comes from a cellular automata study published this month in the journal Physical Review E. In effect, people who disregard the rules help to break up the groups that form as rule-followers clump together. The risk of jamming is lower if all people obey the rules than if they all disobey them, according to the analysis, but jamming risk is lowest when about 40 percent of people drive like jerks."