Traffic waves

[lumberjim]

Originally posted by ladysycamore
(from the article)

Rolling barriers made of State Troopers

OK, so here's how to dissolve a major interstate traffic jam. Start many miles upstream from the jam. Put a row of State Trooper vehicles across the road and have them drive towards the jam. They drive perhaps at 55 rather than 70 as everyone else had been driving. Nobody can get by them, and so all the traffic behind the State Troopers is moving at 55 or so. In front of them a vast space opens up. After many minutes, the traffic which had been feeding into the city traffic jams simply stops arriving. There is no new traffic for many minutes. The huge jam trickles away. Just as the last of it is gone, the row of State troopers and the 55-mph traffic arrives, and the jam has been transformed into miles and miles of slightly slow traffic upstream from the old location of the jam.

This actually happened years ago in MD. I was driving along I-695 towards the city, and suddenly the traffic slowed down, and everyone seemed to be rolling along at the same speed. This continued all the way to the I-95 exit split to go to Baltimore City (north) and Washington, D.C. (south). As I was bearing off to the BC 95N exit, I looked to my left at the traffic that was continuing on I-695 S. I saw that there had been a state trooper in each lane going exactly 55MPH (when it was 55mph..it's now 65mph). Later on that day, I heard about the new "rolling roadblocks" that the MD state troopers were trying out. Funny thing...I only remember it that one time and not hearing about it after that...strange...

I thought it was kinda sneaky, but clever.

that's what I call "protecting and serving" way to go, cops.