With a forecast of 20 percent growth in sales throughout 2009, China is a fascinating example of a society grappling with the effects that the automobile brings. Personally, I'd stick with bikes for the city, guys - it seems more fun.
posted by concreteforest on Aug 3, 2009 - 23 comments

Lightlane builds lasers that shoot out from your bike onto the road, displaying a bike lane wherever you ride. Written about here and here.
posted by erikvan on Jun 24, 2009 - 92 comments

Scott Summit, a self-anointed solution engineer and life hacker, shows you how to beat the traffic system at its own game.
posted by rageagainsttherobots on Mar 2, 2009 - 42 comments

Braess' paradox and the price of anarchy [PDF]: "We had three tunnels in the city and one needed to be shut down. Bizarrely, we found that car volumes dropped. ... We discovered it was a case of Braess' paradox, which says that by taking away space in an urban area you can actually increase the flow of traffic, and, by implication, by adding extra capacity to a road network you can reduce overall performance." [more inside]
posted by parudox on Dec 27, 2008 - 15 comments

US Traffic & Road Sign Test. Five part, 30 questions each, multiple choice test on US road, highway and traffic signs. Results include inline scoring and explanation of each sign. [more inside]
posted by Mitheral on Jun 20, 2008 - 73 comments

The National Traffic Scorecard ranks the 100 most-congested metropolitan areas in the United States. Number one? Los Angeles, naturally. [more inside]
posted by backseatpilot on Jun 17, 2008 - 53 comments

Too much traffic? Can't find parking? Choking on smog? Worried about climate change? Gas prices too high, but you still have to drive? Send your city planner a link to the Online Encyclopedia of Transportation Demand Management strategies. [more inside]
posted by salvia on May 8, 2008 - 7 comments

The number of accidents at one intersection dropped by 95 percent , from 200 a year to about 10... "You can't deny the numbers," he added. "Half the world is eager to see what's going to happen with this program."

Apparently, people in India can handle it. (Surely you saw this on Reddit?)
posted by jaronson on Dec 26, 2007 - 63 comments

From Dubai: Go around twice if you’re happy (YT): Vincent Fichard and Matthew Jones put up fake construction signs around town to test the response of passing motorists
posted by growabrain on Nov 13, 2007 - 37 comments

Proposition 1 - Sound Transit & RTID: Dan Savage is for it ("I want 50 miles of light rail so bad, I don’t give a shit if they pave 180 miles with baby mice," sorta), while the Sierra Club is against ("It wants to support the Sound Transit/light rail portion of the ballot issue, but not the Regional Transportation Improvement District part, which seeks more money to expand and repair roads and highways"). On November 6, voters in Washington's King, Pierce and Snohomish counties will decide.
posted by kliuless on Oct 23, 2007 - 37 comments

The Traffic Police of Mumbai (formerly Bombay, India), one of the most densely populated and traffic-ridden cities in the world, are becoming media savvy. They post billboards, answer traffic complaints sent via sms and have even started a scare campaign against drunk driving that places bloody drink coasters in bars. They are definitely taking their jobs seriously. And so far, some Mumbaikars seem pretty happy with their work.
posted by miss lynnster on Mar 21, 2007 - 34 comments

Court Decision, re: Fisher v. Lowe, Feb. 1999. Car ends up in man's yard. Man sues driver. Judge administers poetic justice. [via]
posted by Smart Dalek on Jan 30, 2007 - 40 comments

The Danish Road Safety Council is a private association of authorities and national organisations in Denmark. The number of member organisations is currently 42. The Council has existed since 1935. The Council works to increase public road safety through information and traffic education. We aim for the public to gain knowledge and understanding of the aspects of road safety. The Council works to sustain road safe conduct by means of campaigns, consulting and the production of instruction blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
This movie was made by the Danish Road Safety Council and aims to draw attention to speed signs and speed limits in Denmark. (embedded movie, nsfw) (direct movie link)
posted by Wet Spot on Nov 7, 2006 - 11 comments

You're 18. You got your driver's license in February, and you just graduated from high school. Last Wednesday night you're zooming down Hwy 101 at 100 mph, racing another car, and you smash into the side of an SUV, killing all three people inside.Turns out two of them were Prince Tu’ipelehake and Princess Kaimana Aleamotu’a Tuku’aho of the Tonga royal family, the only royal monarchy left in the Pacific. Now an entire nation is is mourning and your bail is $3 million.
posted by gottabefunky on Jul 8, 2006 - 192 comments

Advances in traffic management are slowly being recognized as superior to stoplights. (java, video, video)
posted by bigmusic on May 3, 2006 - 37 comments

Calm down. A new, humorous, attempt at "traffic calming". I know, I know, a lot of it was previously discussed. Some think it's a good idea (hey, we've even got some in my neighborhood!). But there are others who disagree. I never thought it would be such a heated topic! (or noteworthy by Wired, even.) Aaaah... the hell with it. Maybe the way to go is NO RULES.
posted by ObscureReferenceMan on Nov 30, 2005 - 16 comments

With the Air Force One Pavilion opening at the Reagan Presidential Library this week, President Bush is coming to L.A. But that's not the big news. The big news is that the 405 freeway (one of 3 major arteries in this city) will be closed for four hours both tonight and tomorrow morning. During rush hour. More inside.
posted by sarajflemming on Oct 20, 2005 - 63 comments

Slow 'em down. "Traffic calming is the combination of mainly physical measures that reduce the negative effects of motor vehicle use, alter driver behavior and improve conditions for non-motorized street users." If you are a frequent pedestrian user of a residential street with high traffic volumes, or speeds, you may be interested in strategies and data from various community projects to alter traffic flow.
posted by paulsc on Jun 17, 2005 - 40 comments

never get stuck on the 405 again? serving los angeles, san diego, san bernadino and riverside counties along with san francisco and miscellaneous cities throughout california, sigalert.com will give you up to the minute traffic information on almost any freeway in california, including average speeds, closed roads, detailed info re: traffic accidents, etc.
(if you're living in LA county, the only con is that it doesn't have information on the canyons...)
posted by mgkaelen on Mar 12, 2005 - 24 comments

"It is stand-up improv at its most creative, with an occasional James Bond-like tale or even a violent plot, all in search of that one shimmering, often elusive dream, the dismissed ticket." (Yes, I know, it's NYT... tell it to the judge, man.) Maybe some of these folks should've read the previous traffic court thread on MeFi, or... (More Inside)
posted by soyjoy on Feb 22, 2005 - 11 comments

Photo-Blocker - For those who are tired of obeying basic traffic laws. (via)
posted by buriednexttoyou on Dec 6, 2004 - 29 comments

These images caused a great debate among my antipodean circle in London whether they are real or have been photoshopped. As far as we can gather it does exist. But it is surreal - and only in the UK surely would something like this be real.
posted by Samuel Farrow on Sep 8, 2004 - 85 comments

Pictures and movies from Southeast Asia. The gem of the site is "Traffic Ballet" (wmv file) on the movie page. The photo galleries are pretty good too.
posted by mathowie on May 24, 2004 - 14 comments

The Fast and the Frustrated. The city of Pleasanton, CA is about to install specially calibrated traffic lights which sense whether or not you are speeding. When speeding is detected, these traffic lights will change from green to yellow to red immediately, and will stay red for 10 to 30 seconds, all in an effort to stymie speeders.
posted by mosspink on Apr 7, 2004 - 36 comments

The DOJ wants to tap your IMs, your email, your VOIP calls, and your Web browsing -- and they want you to pay for it. The Justice Department is seeking to expand its ability to monitor online traffic by forcing broadband providers to make their services "wiretap-friendly," and a petition filed with the FCC this week says you will foot the bill. Get ready for CALEA 2.0. "As a means of espionage, writs of assistance and general warrants are but puny instruments of tyranny and oppression when compared with wire tapping," the prescient Justice Brandeis observed in 1928.
posted by digaman on Mar 13, 2004 - 15 comments

Janklow Gets 100 Days for Manslaughter
A career of willful and flagrant disregard for traffic laws and other people's safety that ended in the death of a motorcyclist.
Must be nice to be pals with the president. Although I'm sure that had nothing to do with his slap-on-the-wrist sentence. I was just saying that it must be nice to be pals with the president.
posted by fenriq on Jan 22, 2004 - 41 comments

How much would you pay for a pushbutton in your car that changes red traffic lights to green? Like in that dopey Italian Job movie? The correct answer is $300.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders on Oct 27, 2003 - 29 comments

The Texas Transportation Institute released their latest figures on which cities are the most congested, and how many hours per year the average person spends in traffic. Or you can read The Big Picture. I find it amazing that New York City isn't in the top 25 cities. The reason being is that New York City has an excellent public transportation network. Even some Politians are realizing that public transportation is a better bang for the buck.
posted by LinemanBear on Sep 30, 2003 - 21 comments

Microsimulation of road traffic with a time-continuous model [via MagentBox]
posted by riffola on Jul 4, 2003 - 14 comments

traffic jam simulator [note: java applet]
posted by crunchland on Jul 2, 2003 - 20 comments

Trying to avoid the traffic in London? Try BBC's JamCams. The only problem is they're all down for maintenace today. Just like they were last May 1st. And the year before that. Nothing wrong with scheduled maintenance.

Except today is the day of the annual MayDay anti-capitalism marches. The last lot of maintenance was planned for protest days too. Last year Fujitsu webcam of Trafalgar Square ended up pointing at the sky halfway during the protest. Anyone want to place bets on how long this webcam of trafalgar square lasts before it's plug gets pulled?
posted by twine42 on May 1, 2003 - 26 comments

Man drives tractor into a ditch on the Mall. And the tractor stand off continues...

I find it amusing how most DCers are concerned more about the ensuing traffic havoc rather than the startling fact that there's a man with (possibly) explosives camped out on the Mall.
posted by gwong on Mar 18, 2003 - 41 comments

Terrorism from Middle America. A sudden green terror hits Washington D.C.
posted by The Jesse Helms on Mar 17, 2003 - 28 comments

Conjestion charging hits london £5 to take a car into the central zone (pdf) between 7am and 6.30pm Mon - Fri. It's all the work of controversial mayor "Red" Ken Livingstone Opinion is split: for and against. A small majority of Londoners seem in favour of it - traffic in London now is as slow as the days of the horse and cart! Day one seems quiet, though it is the school holidays! Is this the answer?
posted by brettski on Feb 17, 2003 - 39 comments

The Open Directory Project bans TNL.net Tristan Louis's web site can no longer be used to access the Open Directory. Why? apparently they can't handle the traffic, so they banned links coming from his pages in the early afternoon.
posted by clevershark on Jan 17, 2003 - 25 comments

Sprawl-induced aberrant driving behavior is a theory proposed by University of Ottawa geography professor Barry Wellar. Suburban roads, built for speed, encourage aggressive driving and bad habits that drivers can sort of get away with in the suburbs, but that carry over to other areas. So that's why it always seems that they're trying to run me off the sidewalk.
posted by mcwetboy on Aug 29, 2002 - 11 comments

Florida state troopers pull over motorists to fill out a survey. "Off-duty troopers picked motorists at random and directed them to pull off the interstate into a rest stop, where Palm Pilot- toting interviewers waited." Shit, I'd be pissed. Yeah - it's only a 90 second survey but still... (from Camworld)
posted by ao4047 on Jul 30, 2002 - 32 comments

Here's something you don't see every day.. The north Texas radio station KVIL 103.7FM has a traffic copter which has flown nearly every weekday without fail for years. It's a regular sight in the sky for Dallas commuters. This morning, it became traffic. Engine failure led to an emergency landing on a city street. Avoiding power lines and oncoming traffic, the pilot lost the tail rotor assembly but otherwise landed his copter intact. A near catastrophe was averted by a very capable, steely-eyed missile man of a pilot. The three reporters in the copter with the pilot suffered only minor injuries. A very lucky day. It coulda been a lot worse.
posted by ZachsMind on Apr 11, 2002 - 12 comments

Thank God for Police hypocrisy for keeping me so amused. Seriously though, this is one of the best articles I've read in a long time. It's a five part series regarding the controversy of redlight cameras, and the evidence that those that administer them are in it for the $$$. For one, they seem to be placed on high-traffic / short yellow light intersections instead of the high-accident intersections. Oh, and it's made D.C. alone over $15 million in two years. Read it to find out how the researchers stretched numbers to get " tiny 3 percent increase in rear-enders" from a 767% increase.
posted by LuxFX on Apr 9, 2002 - 35 comments

WebLogs bring less traffic than major media sites. There isn't any surprize there, but what kind of traffic does each bring?

...those Google/Scientology articles I wrote didn't get nearly as many links from blogs... but they were of much broader interest to readers than the blog articles, so when a few major media sites linked to them, they got a ton of traffic.

Major media sites have to appeal to a common denominator, while smaller sites (MeFi) can focus on quality and thought provoking content. Is there any wonder there's less people interested in the specifics?
posted by KnitWit on Apr 5, 2002 - 12 comments

A pyramid scheme for web traffic? ExitBlaze apparently sends traffic from one member's site to another's (or, no doubt, to other sites they must sell hits to): Bob doesn't know it but a pop-underwindow displaying an ExitBlaze member's site has just shown up underneath the main browser window. And Bob owes it all to you!
posted by mattpfeff on Dec 11, 2001 - 5 comments

Border crossing monitor Driving from Ontario to the U.S.? The Ontario government joins the cluetrain and updates border delays online four times daily. No sign of similar services at, say, Quebec or New Brunswick sites.
posted by joeclark on Sep 16, 2001 - 2 comments

What we do here on Metafilter is unimportant and should be prioritized so more important, corporate network traffic can get through. "The problem is that it was devised by a bunch of hippie anarchists who didn't have a strong profit motive. But this is a business, not a government-sponsored network." (LA Times link)
posted by crasspastor on Jul 26, 2001 - 29 comments

Hands where I can see them, and turn off that tape recorder! Today the Massachusetts Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a man for violating the commonwealth's electronic surveillance law when he secretly recorded police who pulled him over in a traffic stop. While it's generally bad to tape people without telling them, should there be an exception w/r/t to recording public officials acting in their official capacities? Or is wrong just wrong?
posted by dchase on Jul 13, 2001 - 22 comments

Michael Stipe's neighbors Who said that rockstars aren't like us?
posted by matteo on Apr 24, 2001 - 43 comments

It's about time! Remember the Road Rage case in San Jose where a man threw a lady's dog into traffic last year? He's been found. The man who threw Leo the dog into oncoming traffic last year has been found. Ironically, he was found already in Jail.
posted by da5id on Apr 13, 2001 - 8 comments

Popularity kills: nosepilot hit (almost) into oblivion Not all Flash sucks: many of us who have dreamed of putting our fists through the screen at yet another stupid corporate Flash intro loved Al Sacui's dreamy little piece. But now Sacui is looking for some way to cover or modify his ISP's $16,000 bill (which he just found out about yesterday -- no warning beforehand that traffic was a problem). He's hoping to sort out the financial problems and has people in contact with his ISP re the debt, but what he really needs is someone to mirror or co-host the 4.8 Mb of files that make up the site. Can you help out?
posted by maudlin on Mar 9, 2001 - 34 comments

AOL Dominates Web Traffic, according to Jupiter Media Metrix, who found that AOL Time Warner’s combined share of the time Americans spent online last month was 33(!) percent.
posted by frednorman on Feb 27, 2001 - 8 comments

Oops! Drugs awareness officer dies from overdose. I just saw 'Traffic' tonight...
posted by black8 on Jan 6, 2001 - 3 comments

Traffic Waves [via /usr/bin/girl] I've always had a suspicion that traffic was a wave phenomenon. This is interesting theory. [more inside...]
posted by plinth on Dec 21, 2000 - 15 comments