Don’t tailgate!

Oran Viriyincy / CC

If you’ve ever encountered a “phantom traffic jam,” or traffic slowdown that doesn’t seem to have an apparent cause, it was probably some jerk tailgating somebody. Researchers at MIT found that not only does tailgating not get you anywhere faster, it actually creates traffic jams that shouldn’t exist. Basically, when you tailgate, you remove your ability to slow down gradually in the event a car up ahead reduces its speed. Because you have less time to react and avoid rear-ending the car in front of you, you hit the brakes hard and take away all of your vehicle’s momentum in an instant. All the cars behind you then have to slow down quickly as well while you build up speed again. It causes a chain reaction that eventually brings traffic to a crawl for no good reason.