A record is broken: 266 km of traffic jam!

Diego Moita

São Paulo already has the worst traffic in the world[^]. But today they did more than ever. At 7:30 pm today the city had the worst traffic jam in history: 266 km (165 miles) of gridlock. :omg: :wtf: Neither Moscow, Istanbul, Mexico City or any city in India has a worst record than that. However, with this new cheap Tata cars it won't take it too long for India to beat us. It takes 3 things to make a monstrous traffic: lots of people, lots of cars and a very crappy network of roads. São Paulo has all 3 of them. The previous record was in 1996 with 242 km (150 miles) of traffic jam.

Of all forms of sexual aberration, the most unnatural is abstinence.

Ilion

Diego Moita wrote:

It takes 3 things to make a monstrous traffic: lots of people, lots of cars and a very crappy network of roads. São Paulo has all 3 of them. The previous record was in 1996 with 242 km (150 miles) of traffic jam.

Those may be necessary conditions (the first two, the third isn't, as gridlok can happen with good road networks), but they are not sufficient conditions. However, the *necessary [[edit:] and sufficient]* condition to get gridlock is that a certain critical mass of those "lots of people" be completely selfish/self-centered in their driving/navigating. And that critical mass is a pretty low percentage.

modified on Saturday, May 10, 2008 7:28 PM

MarkB777

Diego Moita wrote:

266 km (165 miles) of gridlock

sh!t, How many days would you have to wait in that jam!!!

Mark Brock Click here to view my blog

Kannan Coder

Diego Moita wrote:

Tata cars it won't take it too long for India to beat us

I am afraid that situation. Heard that nanon booking reached for the 5 years of production.

MrPlankton

How's the economy, could also be sign of growth and prosperity?

MrPlankton

Diego Moita

MarkBrock wrote:

sh!t, How many days would you have to wait in that jam!!!

Luckily not that much; an average of 4.5 hours. Keep in mind that these 266 km is the sum of gridlock in all roads, not a single line in one single road. The traffic authorities switched the direction of a few roads and then the gridlock began flowing, slowly but steady. Because of this some secondary gridlocks were taken out of the main one. It's like creating extra holes for it to flow, avoiding the central bottleneck.

Of all forms of sexual aberration, the most unnatural is abstinence.

Patrick Etc

Diego Moita wrote:

But today they did more than ever. At 7:30 pm today the city had the worst traffic jam in history: 266 km (165 miles) of gridlock.

Wow. Simply wow. The worst I've ever seen was here in Washington, DC when the gridlock hit about 30 miles when a semi got into a pileup with 3 passenger cars. I missed the accident by about 3 minutes or else I would have been stuck in that pileup as well...

It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. - Albert Einstein

Diego Moita

MrPlankton wrote:

How's the economy, could also be sign of growth and prosperity?

That's a good point. Brazilian economy is growing fast by now. The bulk of this growth is on the smaller towns; agriculture is going very strong these days in Brazil. But São Paulo gets a big part of it, too.

Of all forms of sexual aberration, the most unnatural is abstinence.

Ilion

Patrick S wrote:

Wow. Simply wow. The worst I've ever seen was here in Washington, DC when the gridlock hit about 30 miles when a semi got into a pileup with 3 passenger cars. I missed the accident by about 3 minutes or else I would have been stuck in that pileup as well...

And I'd just about bet that the pileup wasn't because someone was careless or inattentive, but because someone had the idea that he was the most important driver on the road. A few years ago, coming back to Ohio from Indiana on the Toll Road, I sat for two hours and watched three life-flight helicoptors arrive and depart (before the State Police finally allowed all the hundreds tied up to head back in the other direction) just a few hundred feet short of a car-under-semi pile up. It was caused by the driver of the car trying to "sneak" around the semi at the very point where the Interstate was reducing to a single lane (so that both directions of traffic could be routed on a single side of the highway). With concrete barriers on the one side, and the semi on other, the (temporary) King of the Road apparently couldn't resist the lure of "I *must* be in front!"

Patrick Etc

Ilíon wrote:

And I'd just about bet that the pileup wasn't because someone was careless or inattentive, but because someone had the idea that he was the most important driver on the road.

In this case, that someone was the semi driver. He tried to cut off the car, miscalculated, hit the car, ricocheted and hit other cars, crushing one and killing the driver. In this area, the semi drivers are some of the most dangerous drivers on the road - they drive their rigs like hot rods and play chicken when cars merge in front of them. The age of the polite big rig driver ended a long time ago, only now, they use their 20,000 ton advantage like a weapon.

It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. - Albert Einstein

Ilion

Patrick S wrote:

In this case, ... The age of the polite big rig driver ended a long time ago, only now, they use their 20,000 ton advantage like a weapon.

Of course. [It's as ridiculous to attribute goodness to a group as it is badness -- individual humans are good or bad, and generally both] Twenty years ago (when I drove a Fiero), a semi-driver tried for several miles to spook me into crashing (thank goodness that there was a handy exit). He'd moved in front of me (the normal left lane to right lane move), but was much to close to me when he did -- I'd had to swerve onto the shoulder and hit the brakes to avoid being smashed under his wheels. (I figure it was carelessness, initially.) So, I decided that I ought to at least notify his company. The only identifying verbiage was on the cab, so I pulled up alongside him to get it. He saw what I was doing, and the "game" was on. And, when I did get to the exit and tried to contacted the State police ... I got a brush-off ("There are too many truckers for us to try to find one"). And when I got home and tried to contact the company, I got no answer.