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OneOffAskyesterday at 8:23 PM1 replyview on HN

Aim to make the road laminar. Every time you hard brake, you're causing the milk jug to glug, making a ripple of entropy as momentum turns to heat from your brakes and those behind you, sometimes in perpetuity. I learned this while doing a 1.5hr daily commute in a Subaru with a clapped out manual transmission. I wanted to conserve energy shifting, but realized I was now participating in large choreographed dance of "smooth" with other drivers who already knew this. There are many of us. And we all glare at the driver blinking their red lights on the interstate indicating that they're loud and proud of introducing turbulence to an otherwise peaceful system.


Replies

nkriscyesterday at 11:37 PM

I try to do the same, and do my part to smooth out the wrinkles in traffic.

What I would really like in a car is not only my current speed, but the relative speed to the car ahead of me. Given my car has cameras and other sensors for cruise control and other features this ought to already be possible.