An interesting segment on Catalyst last night saw reporter Maryke Steffens take on the anchorwoman Dr Maryanne Demasi in a different kind of commuter challenge: the Lane Change Challenge…
Itís Murphyís Law. Right? The other lane or queue always seems to be going faster. But change into it and all of a sudden it stops and youíre back in the same predicament!
Chronic lane changers really do believe theyíre making headway in the long run, but does constantly chasing the faster lane really get you to your destination substantially sooner?
So after sixteen kilometres across Sydney with Maryke doing the zipping between lanes thing and Maryanne sticking to the same lane as much as possible…
Dr Maryanne Demasi: How did I go, I know you beat me.
David Brown: Well you came second but you lost 1 minute and 40 seconds.
Dr Maryanne Demasi: Is that all? Oh my god. I thought she was going to be well ahead of me.
Maryke Steffens: And I arrived stressed.
Narration: So, a 1 minute 40 gain over an approximately 40 minute journey ñ but the GPS reveals a lot more than what can be seen from behind the wheel.
David Brown: When you were on the freeway standard road you were both consistent I know [Maryke] changed lanes a few times but it really didnít make any difference at all.
David Brown: You managed to go on average 1.1km an hour quicker.
Maryke Steffens: Is that it?
Narration: Hardly worth the gear change, but not surprising when you see what speed we spent most of our journey doing.
David Brown: So both of you must exactly the amount spent 39% doing 0-10 kms an hour.
Geez, even I can ride faster than that! It puts things in a different light, doesn't it? Does this mean that 39% of the time in heavy traffic cars are actually "holding me up"? Heh!
All in your head
Narration: So why then does it seem that the other lane is always going faster and that we should be in it? In 2000, researchers in Toronto, Canada studied traffic flows on American highways and concluded that lane advantage is mostly in the head.
David Brown: If you're stopped in a row of traffic youíve got time to look around so you get really conscious of all these other cars passing you. If you are moving and you maybe overtaking a few things you're more concentrating on whatís ahead of you so your balances you havenít got right. You're super conscious of whether you are overtaken but not as conscious when you are getting ahead.
Which says a lot about why some drivers just have to keep a mere cyclist behind them.
It's not all good news
Narration: … At the University of Queensland, transport researchers have designed computer simulations to study how excessive lane changing can affect entire traffic systems and in a demonstration akin to MY journey, the results are surprisingly similar.
Maryke Steffens: Was the aggressive driver managing to go any faster?
Dr Hussein Dia: Actually the difference was only one kilometre per hour on average. However that was at the expense of much larger accelerations and decelerations… The aggressive driver used 2 and a half times as much fuel.
Maryke Steffens: And thatís just over an 11 minute journey? Thatís amazing!
Narration: On a motorway, with an even greater variation of acceleration, the impact is even more staggering. Fuel consumption was FOUR TIMES greater for the aggressive driver. Added to that is an increase in emissions ñ carbon dioxide is correspondingly four times greater…
Maryke Steffens: Ok so itís not so much the speed that youíre driving but the accelerating and breaking [sic].
Attention Michael Duffy-ites: cyclists are NOT responsible either for slowing you down or increasing pollution (or even for your ridiculous level of fuel consumption) – you are.
Boom crash whallop
Narration: Erratic lane changing can cause delays for people behind you as they react to the unexpected - or worse still, cause accidents. US statistics show that somewhere between 4 and 9 per cent of all highway accidents ñ major and minor - are related to lane changing.
I've always thought that lane changing is an inherently risky thing to do. It's a calculated risk, to be sure, but sometimes people miscalculate quite badly, don't they?
And the final word?
David Brown: So in summary the perception was there that you'd done well and you got there very quickly the reality was that the extra time wasnít much at all.
Maryke Steffens: Yeah I still would have gotten the best park though.
Oh, well played Maryke! D'oh!
Photo from FreeFoto.com
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