🚀 go-pugleaf

Walt Horning wrote:
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Traffic dynamics is dynamic, not static.

That last point is really the linchpin of the whole eternal r.a.d.
argument. :-)  What Earl and other "investigators" don't quite grasp is
that you can't model the behavior of automobiles in traffic as if they
were gas molecules.

In the general case, it's true enough that collision probabilities
increase with speed... *if* you're talking about the particulate
components of a passive material subject to the thermodynamics of closed
systems.  

A section of roadway filled with moving vehicles, on the other hand,
can't be represented that way.  Rather, it can be thought of as a
non-linear dynamical system -- a localized area in which the trend
towards increased entropy with speed and the passage of time is not in
effect.  Why?  Because all those cars and trucks have people in them,
people who (at least in theory) are aware of their environment and
capable of acting to modify its parameters.  

In other words, human drivers are capable of independent observation and
action based on traffic conditions.  Gas molecules are not.  They pretty
much have no choice but to bump into each other with increasing
frequency and violence as temperature (i.e., speed) increases.  

As drivers, we can adjust our behavior in response to increases in speed
by increasing following distances and maintaining a higher degree of
alertness (perhaps even hanging up our cell phones!)  Gas molecules
can't do any of those things, so when the temperature goes up, they
suffer the fate Earl predicts for us all when we choose to do 75 in a
65.

In other words, Earl and the other nanny-statists are guilty of
overgeneralization to an extent that would be considered almost... dare
we say, "criminal?" in the scientific community.  

Of course, that revelation probably won't stop them from telling us all
how the world really works, spewing anecdote after anecdote to "prove"
that the statisticians have it all wrong.

-- jm

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