After a month of June marked by political turmoil, the French are slowly approaching the summer holidays. School holidays began on July 6 and the first holidaymakers are settling into campsites, hotels, hostels, Airbnbs or preparing to do so this weekend. But to get there, it will be difficult to escape the traffic jams, with a Saturday classified as red in the direction of departures in a large district of the north-west and in Auvergne Rhône Alpes. But how do traffic jams form?
Too many people on the same path
There are several reasons why a traffic jam may appear. Some are “saturation plugs”, as Coyote, a specialist in danger warnings, calls them on his blog. This type of traffic jam is formed when too many vehicles want to use the same lane at the same time. Coyote calculates that if there are more than 1,500 vehicles per hour in the same lane, this lane is no longer able to absorb all the traffic, and this is true above an average of 70 km/h.
You have to wait until the first vehicles have passed so that the new ones can access this route and take it in turns. A higher speed does not necessarily mean that the cars will leave their space more quickly, because first of all, all motorists must respect the safety distances. And by arriving more quickly at the congestion zone, the following vehicles must slow down. Then they accelerate again to leave. This creates an accordion and therefore helps the cork to grow.
A construction zone with fewer lanes or lane closures will of course accelerate the formation of the slowdown.
a human factor
On a road that is not overloaded, a traffic jam can still form. In fact, every motorist can be the cause of the traffic jam. By driving a little slower than those around him, a motorist will cause those behind him to slow down, gradually, until the last one stops. The traffic jam appears.
So should you change lanes to make sure you can pass between slowdowns? No, because that would only shift the traffic jam to the next lane, getting between the vehicles, at a necessarily reduced speed. If you have the impression that the next line is moving faster, that is actually an impression.
Source: BFM TV
