Traffic Accidents and being 'Kaypoh'...

I have been stuck in traffic jams, especially those caused by traffic accidents.

And the usual complaints are always "People slow down to gawk", causing the traffic to be slow even AFTER the vehicles were moved away.

Though I would usually grumble when I am stuck in such jams, I know sometimes, things just happen in this manner. With everyone thinking for themselves and reacting to situations which will feed itself.. Self-organized events, I think..

http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200404/backpage.cfm

Sometimes, even without and accident, one person in a dense traffic flow, not paying attention to the road will cause a jam too..

Just imagine.. all around, everyone is travelling at 90km/h. One guy decides to jam brake, for 2 seconds.. Either not paying attention to a slowing vehicle in front, or a piece of debris falling in front of his path.. And then accelerated back to 90km/h after that brief 2 seconds..

The guy behind him hits the brakes hard too, but this time, he will take more than 2 seconds.. maybe 3 or 4 seconds.. cos of shock.. and he has to make sure that the first guy did accelerate before he will press his accelerator again..

Imagine the guy behind THIS guy, will take another 1 or 2 seconds longer than HIM. And it goes on.. and about 10 minutes later.. that stretch of road has slowed to a crawl to 30km/h...


Oh, and how about accident vehicles ? Is it that bad to take a look ? Why not ? Let those who drive recklessly take a close look and hope they do not do that.. Let the kids who just got their license know how their cars will look like should they decide to test the laws of physics..

But then those who will heed such "warnings" will not need to SEE these accidents.. looking at newspaper photos will be sufficient.. Those die-hard racers and people who think they are immortal, no amount of gore is going to scare them.

So perhaps being kaypoh is good, perhaps it is useless too.. I will never know..