What's worse than a morning without your pick-me-up cup of joe? Rush hour traffic, that's what. All you want is to just get to work and get the day over with, but everyone and their mother decided to take the same highway. Before you know it, you're all stuck there, bumper-to-bumper. And if you drive in a city like Los Angeles or New York City, the traffic is near constant, and it's guaranteed that you'll deal with it on a daily basis.
But what exactly can cause traffic jams, especially when it's not rush hour or there's no special event happening? Well, sometimes, drivers are just annoying and their poor driving can have a ripple effect on the whole highway.
A group of Japanese researchers performed an experiment to see just how inattentive drivers can ruin traffic flow when there aren't other cars entering the highway and overflowing it. By having a group of cars drive in a large circle and making one flow to stop for a second, the experiment quickly proved its point. With just one driver slowing down, it slowly created a bigger and bigger traffic jam as the other cars behind it had to come to a stop and go again.
So the next time your mind wanders while you're driving, just remember that not only could your daydreams pose a threat to everyone's safety, it can also be the start of an unnecessary jam.
Please SHARE if there are way too many bad drivers on the road!
