I often ask myself why drivers change lanes so often? I think of Samir Nagheenanajar changing lanes in one of the opening scenes of Office Space. I have to admit I get some satisfaction seeing people swerving in and out of traffic and still ending up behind me. Changing lanes in congested traffic doesn’t get you to your destination any faster. Instead, it makes your commute more dangerous. It seems as though drivers are fooled in thinking that the other lane is moving faster, when it is merely a “perceptual illusion.”
Is the lane next to me moving any faster? The answer is no according to scientists Redelmeier and Tibshirani who have found that cars in congested traffic spend more time being overtaken by other cars than they did passing them. Both lanes move at the same average speed, but it doesn’t seem like that to the driver.
Another cause of the illusion is lane envy, Redelmeier and Tibshirani say. Drivers tend to feel as if they’re always stuck in the slow lane. People tend to glance at the next lane over more often when they’re moving slowly, which can make their situation seem worse than it really is. Also, since drivers face forward, the cars they pass disappear quickly behind them while those that overtake them remain annoyingly visible. “During any trip, there’ll be far fewer moments of pleasure when you’re passing and far more moments of pain when you’re being overtaken,” Redelmeier says.
Mathematician Dawson and Riggs discovered that if you’re driving in the slow lane, you will only rarely pass another car, but you’ll see cars streaming by in the passing lane. “This will give you the misimpression that more people are driving fast and fewer people are driving slow,” Riggs says. Drivers also miscalculate the actual speed of traffic, another illusion that’s liable to make him want to change lanes.
According to a recent study by the
1 comments:
Hmm, I think you are reading too much into this study. The fact of the matter is that this study takes the aggregate of all of those who change lanes, giving results that resemble a bell shaped curve. Most lane changers are going to be centered on the mean, so the average lane changer will be spend more time in traffic. But this also means that there are going to be lane changers are going to be at the far ends of the curve. This is where the allure in lane changing lies. If you are good at it, you will be successful at reducing your time in traffic. If you are bad, you will spend more time.
And to your note about “Men are more than twice as likely to die in car accidents”, I would like to see that study. Did the study also give you statistics on how many more men are on the road than women? If it did, I could easily make the case that since men are more likely to have to work in order to bring home a living for their family, they are more likely to have to drive. More driving equals more risk. Additionally, since men are more likely to work in hazardous occupations also leading to an increase in your incident numbers. Granted, I will give you that fact that more men are likely to ride motor cycles (more and more without helmets, leading to the sharp rise in fatalities), but don’t let the ignorant actions of a few slander the reputation of the many.
I also have found a study published in Time magazine that states that “Men are twice as likely to get hit by lightning or die in a flash flood”. Maybe your stat has less to do with any perceived recklessness and more to do with the fact that God does not value lives of men as much as he values the lives of women. Or maybe men are just more reckless when it comes to playing with lightening.
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