Scientific proof: Tail-running vehicles cause traffic jams

Researchers at MIT have discovered that tailing does not make you move faster, on the contrary it is easy to cause unnecessary traffic jams.

When driving to the road, you have certainly encountered the "virtual traffic congestion" : open road, not too many vehicles, but the speed of travel slows down, maybe because some cars in front are tailgating.

Picture 1 of Scientific proof: Tail-running vehicles cause traffic jams
Stalking to indicate that the driver is sticking to the rear of the car.

Researchers at MIT have discovered that tailing does not make you move faster, on the contrary it is easy to cause unnecessary traffic jams.

Stalking to indicate that the driver is sticking to the rear of the car. This is a particularly dangerous type of driving, a major cause of traffic accidents in Europe, according to a YouGov study in 2011. Experts always warn drivers to leave the necessary distance with the car. forward, to be able to handle it promptly in emergency situations.

It is with long distance driving. Professor Berthold Horn of MIT and colleagues Liang Wang also pointed out that the habit of running tail is worse if you join traffic in the city or narrow road area.

Horn said that for smooth traffic, cars need to keep an adequate distance on the road:

"Our research shows that, if all drivers keep the same distance between the front, rear and sides cars, it will make the traffic flow free from disturbance .".

Picture 2 of Scientific proof: Tail-running vehicles cause traffic jams
The difference between keeping the distance between cars (on) and tail running (below).

Basically, when running on your tail, you eliminate most of your judgment and handling, especially in case the front vehicle slows down suddenly. As a habit, the driver will brake quickly to avoid hitting the car first.

All cars running on the tail will experience the same situation according to the chain reaction. Lightly leads to traffic jams, heavier than accidents.

Horn and Wang are working hard to help people raise their awareness of tailing, we need to pay more attention to the distance between vehicles.

They hoped, features on future models could fix that problem, with a system called "bilateral control" (bilateral control) - helping to maintain the minimum safe distance between cars. car.

Horn estimates, if this system is widely used, traffic jams will be the story of the past, the speed of traffic may nearly double. Until now, running on the tail is still a dangerous habit to avoid.