When there is an accident on one side of the highway, why is there a traffic jam on the opposite side of the highway?
I was driving along one day on I-71 and experienced economics! I was going a steady speed of 70, when all of a sudden traffic came to an abrupt stop. I was held up in a massive line on the freeway for 45 minutes. After waiting for what seemed like forever, I slowly drove past an accident on the other side of the highway. After this point, the traffic jam was gone. Magically everyone started to speed up and I was back to going 70. So after wasting 45 minutes of my day, I thought to myself, are you serious, why would people stop to look, slowing everyone down behind them, causing an unnecessary traffic jam? I mean the accident wasn’t even on our side of the road.
So I started thinking about this very common and annoying traffic tendency. It all has to do with the economic principle of costs and benefits. The cost of slowing down to look at the accident that has just occurred on the other side of the highway is that the driver (and the people driving directly behind them) will be delayed for a few short seconds. The benefit is that the driver will satisfy their curiosity. Overall, people want to know what is going on more so than they care about slowing down traffic, thus their benefit is greater than their cost and they slow down to look. However, if everyone slows down, then there could be a delay as long as 45 minutes, all due to people’s curiosity. This, I think, is ridiculous. People need to reevaluate their benefits and costs when driving on the road.
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This is a very interesting application of economics to real life. I agree with your cost and benefits hypothesis.
ReplyDeleteIt's like a surplus/shortage scenario. We are all demanding the satisfaction of seeing this wreck, but the road is only 2 lanes. Therefore, there is a shortage of how many people get to see the wreck at once. And people slow down to the get the full effect of their satisfaction.
Wow, I am involved too deep with economics.
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ReplyDeleteYou mention people cost and benefits of looking at a crash scene on the other side of a highway and say why stop. keep going 70mph. But maybe people are not looking to see a scene; perhaps they, at that moment, are evaluating their cost and benefits as to when they where going 70mph and realize, if I slow down by 5mph I will be safer, and therefore not end-up in a twisted burning mess of dead people. But as for the highway, the number of cars and trucks on the road at that moment are the supply and need to go some place else is the demand. Then maybe this is a better example of our stock markets or housing markets. Go to fast and you eventually we may end-up crashing. And it takes passerby’s to see the crash to say, maybe for awhile we should all slowdown and reevaluate the situation. After the thought passed the market (drivers) makes it back to equilibrium (70mph).
ReplyDeleteBut as for the real life situation of waiting in traffic, I hate “rubber-neckers”.
First, the so called benefit may not be as one dimensional as you stated.
ReplyDeleteIt is not just about the curiosity.
It is human nature to be more cautious near areas of perceived danger or harm.
This may be more a contributing factor than curiosity to the traffic jam on the opposite lane.
While the lanes are probably divided by a rail, the un-normal state creates an illogical risk in one’s mind which is taken into consideration.
Additionally, most likely, the traffic problem is associated with the cleanup operation rather than curiosity or caution. In order to increase the efficiency of the cleanup operation and protect the safety of the workers, the speed or available lanes are controlled.
The cost of this situation is your time and gas expense versus safety of the workers and reducing the overall time that the traffic in both directions flows un-normally.
While the math needs to be done, the matter is not as ridiculous as stated.
I actually agree with Yanghoon. It is human nature to be more cautious near areas of perceived danger or harm and therefor a natural reaction to slow down even if the accident is on the other side of the highway. Chances are the first people to witness the accident didn't see it, they heard it. They heard something that was out of the norm and therefor slowed down as a precaution. Now these people who slowed down caused a chain reaction resulting traffic to slow down for at least 10 to 15 minutes. For example if a person on the highway slows down to a complete stop it takes at least 15 minutes for traffic to go back to regular flow. I would say this is more a transportation principle.
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