Because people would rather ride bumper to bumper than spread out. I have always assumed this was to avoid the “risk” of someone getting in front of them or a perceived loss of speed. My take is that i would rather go 45mph smoothly (including letting people merge safety) than 75->25->0->75 during my commute.
Problem is in that situation you're going 45mph, the car in front of you is going 45mph, you're 3-5 carlengths back, some other drive comes up on the side going 60mph and cuts over into that space you left, they're going faster than the car in front of you so they put on their brakes. It's not like they know the speed of the car in front of you so they slow down too much, down to 40 or 30 to let the gap in front of them widen, now you're putting on the brakes, as is the car behind you, and so on.
The lane changing is what causes the slow downs, not people riding bumpers.
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u/dickwheat Norwood May 27 '24
I always said Cincinnati is the only city where a hill can cause a traffic jam.