I do it for stop signs, too, so I only have to stop once. Especially if it is uphill.

I started a job in Fresno in 2013, driving up from LA on Sunday and back down on Friday.

Bluetooth had started to become standard in all cars, and as I was working on a train project, the idea occurred that if we could link all the freeway cars in series, and treat it as one long train, then I would essentially just have to steer, and we all would avoid brake-waves.

One car only needs to be able to talk to the one car in front of and the one car behind itself.

According to analysis from engineers, or Esther from a guy I used to work with who studied break waves for the state transportation board, less cars with larger gaps is better. That's why you see semaphores on highway entering ramps sometimes, ie 101 around SV or certain European big city inner highways.

This is a problem that can probably be solved someday with self driving cars collaborating to make highways huge coordinated conveyor belts.

Seattle adjusts the speed limit on one of their highways down to 45 or 35 during rush hour which increases the throughput as the cars can be closer together. Not sure if that has been picked up by other cities.

Ever since driving an electric car, I have come to believe that a gas-throttle car’s laggy response during stop and go traffic may be responsible for the elasticity of the delay propagation. From zero, a piston pumper goes through a complicated series of windups which seems like days compared to an electric motor.