I’ve found myself stuck in traffic recently, and each time I noticed a type of driver that I like to refer to as the traffic shaper.
You arrive at what appears to be a traffic jam, only to get through it and find absolutely no reason for it having occured. Whatever caused the original traffic jam has long gone but its affect was long lasting. The wave of traffic slowing to a crawl, travelling in first gear for some distance, them speeding up again takes time to smooth out back to a normal traffic flow.
Traffic shapers are people that try to speed-up the smoothing process by slowing down early, keeping a large gap between them and the vehicle in front, and then aiming to keep moving at a slow pace but never stopping if they can help it. The aim is to smooth out the traffic to avoid the waves of stopping and starting to try and remove the traffic pulses.
It’s a fine art and can take some practice. You’ll get the odd annoying driver who overtakes you and pulls into the gap you are leaving, messing up your shaping of the traffic. The trick is not to give up. It also breaks up the manotany of being in a traffic jam.
Next time you are stuck in traffic look out for traffic shapers. There are plenty of us around.