The two most dangerous hours to drive
Baku, June 28 (AZERTAC). On the drive home from work tonight, be alert. A team of researchers from Spain analyzed traffic patterns on a highway and found that evenings between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. are the the most dangerous for driving.
Using sensors, technicians from the Madrid City Council and a team of Polish and Spanish researchers deployed every 1,640 feet (500 meters) along the M30 highway around Madrid to collect data about traffic density, speed and how long the cars stayed in any one spot on the road.
They then used a special algorithm to analyze the patterns. They found that traffic has three phases: free flow, in which the number of vehicles per hour and the number of vehicles per mile grow in tandem, congested and an intermission named passing or synchronized. The speeds of vehicles at different points on the roadway correlated with each other, especially during the 'synchronized' phase.
Ordinarily cars are moving at similar speeds even if they are far away from each other. But during rush hour, between 6:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. local time, the correlation broke down. There was a lot more stop-and-go in the traffic pattern, which happens because cars are accelerating at different speeds or stopping at different intervals. As that occurred, driving conditions changed in a way that made it more difficult for drivers. The research team checked accident statistics and found that they matched up with the times that the correlation between vehicle speeds got smaller.
The reason makes some sense intuitively; it's rush hour and there's a lot more cars on the road. But it's the numbers that make the finding more solid -- and shed some light on why driving in the evening is such a pain. It also shows why drivers have to be more aware of their surroundings. When the cars around you are all moving at different speeds, there's less time to react and more that can go wrong.
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