The EU making sense?

[Whorty]

Not only that, but in typical town, which is pretty congested with traffic anyway, reducing speed limits would simply increase the incidence and severity of traffic jams.

Do you make up everything you say in the real world too, or just on here?

[Whorty]

Maybe in some situations, but it's hard to be sure. My intuition, FWIW, is that slower speeds and thus longer journey times (even without traffic jams) mean more cars on the road at any given time, hence a greater tendency to build up jams at traffic lights and roundabouts, and worsen the bunching effect elsewhere due to slow reaction times.

So your made up bollox then on zero facts?

Another way of looking at it is a fictitious (and ridiculous I know) thought experiment - Suppose every vehicle travelled at 10000 MPH, and stopped and started almost instantly. Then the roads would be pretty much empty all the time, with flashes every few seconds as a vehicle zipped past too fast for the eye to follow. So in that extreme situation, there would be no traffic jams, or queues at traffic lights if these changed fast as well, I wouldn't have thought.

Let's try a different experiment .. every vehicle travels at at 10mph, stopped and started instantly, then there would be zero traffic jams and congestion too.

But ... not sure if you've noticed ... the real world doesn't work like in that way. That's why we get traffic jams on motorways quite often even though there is no obstruction ... the concertina effect having a ripple through the traffic and causing tail backs when all the happened is 3 miles ahead someone changed lane suddenly, someone slammed their brakes on and the ripple of that flowed through the traffic.

FFS ..... I despair at some people's posts on here sometimes.

Where do I register my vote for COTY .... or has Owly already won?

[NotAllThere]

Maybe in some situations, but it's hard to be sure. My intuition, FWIW...

Your intuition isn't worth much on this topic I'm afraid. Maybe go and read some papers on fluid dynamics, traffic simulations etc.

[OwlHoot]

.. not sure if you've noticed ... the real world doesn't work like in that way. That's why we get traffic jams on motorways quite often even though there is no obstruction ... the concertina effect having a ripple through the traffic ...

Not sure if you noticed, but I mentioned that very thing, although I called it "bunching"

Anyway, it seems surprisingly hard to find online studies on congestion vs static (constant) speed limits, but here's one:

Congestion Modelling, by C R Lindsey & E T Verhoef; 1999-11-05

Haven't read the whole paper carefully, but I did notice the following:

.. Broadly speaking, traffic congestion occurs when the cost of travel is increased by the presence of other vehicles, either because speeds fall or because greater attention is required to drive safely. ..

Where do I register my vote for COTY .... or has Owly already won?

I forget, but I think AtW won again this year. He tries so hard. But maybe try registering next year.

[SueEllen]

Blah blah contradict myself

It's taught to everyone who does physics higher than GCSE level.

I forget, but I think AtW won again this year. He tries so hard. But maybe try registering next year.

No you definitely won.