Braking is Cause, Accelerating is Solution (Score 1)

When I find myself caught in these shockwaves, I always attempt to do my little bit of help get rid of the jam. Since the tapping on the brakes causes the deceleration shockwave, I counter that with the acceleration shockwave. Quite simply, when you begin to get through the shockwave and speed back up, KEEP ON THE GAS. Stay the (safe) same amount of distance between you and the car in front of you. If everyone in line does this, the reverse effect will be observed from the braking shockwave. However, in the real world, some Sr. citizen inevitably does not accelerate. I'll be looking in my rearview mirror and notice a 20 car length gap all of a sudden. But that gap shows that the acceleration technique should work if everyone does it. The concept is identical to starting out from a Red Light. It is unsafe, but if everyone in the line at the light started to accelerate at the same time when the light turned green, many more cars would get through. But accelerating inline with the person in front of you (and not letting those extra 3-4 car lengths build) will get everyone back up to speed much faster. I have no proof for the statements made here as I don't have 30 cars in a loop to test them out. Just my observations from the real world.