Getting Nowhere on Explaining Freeway Slowdowns

It took me an hour to drive 17 miles the other evening after work. This was on the 405 Freeway, going south, until it became the 5, going nowhere.

I was listening to the radio, back and forth, AM and FM, for a clue. I wanted to know why. A reason, any reason, tends to calm my nerves.

It was not to be.

I didn’t hear about any crippled big rigs, construction workers under lights, stalls, Grateful Dead concerts at Irvine Meadows or a load of eggs scrambled on the road. I didn’t see any either. There were no accidents of any kind.

By the time I figured out this awful truth, I felt like causing a five-car pileup.

Now don’t get me wrong here. I’m not one of those types--and you know who you are--who cruise the freeways, secretly hoping for blood, but gawking at whatever they find. These gawkers are the blockers, on a par with a crippled big rig any time.

But, really folks, hear me out. Is just one little accident, off on the side, with no injuries involved, too much to ask? It would have made me feel so much better the other night.

How else can you logically explain thousands of cars jerking along at an average speed of 17 miles for every hour on the road?

Answer: You cannot. Logic is not involved.

I’ve decided to get to the bottom of this once and for all. It’s been driving me up a wall. So I’ve been calling around.

“Just think of The Three Stooges trying to go through a door at the same time,” Caltrans traffic analyst Joe El-Harake tells me. “They can’t do it.”

What Joe is talking about here is what I will call, for lack of a more scientific name, the bad manners theory of traffic tie-ups.

Joe thinks that at one time, maybe as long as an hour before I hit the road, there was probably some easily recognizable reason for a traffic slow-down, say, an accident. These things take a long time to clear.

In the meantime, drivers start pumping their brakes. Then they start getting edgy, unhappy, steamed and mad as hell. They change lanes, in and out and back again. Brake lights flash, in staccato, then the shine lasts longer and longer, until everything seems aglow.

“Think of the narrow end of a funnel,” Joe says. “There is not much room. Then there is pushing and shoving going on. This is the human factor. Of course, it makes things worse. On the freeways, it’s not liquid we’re talking about.”

Oh, don’t we know. The human factor. Which leads to another theory that I personally think has plenty of worth. I’ll call this one the twinkling taillights theory, although really I don’t think it’s a theory at all. It’s a conspiracy, plain as the horn on a rhino’s nose.

I figure I may have fallen victim the other night, but who can say? The conspirators are crafty. Even KNX, despite its vast network of traffic tipsters, has yet to track them down.

All it takes is one guy, but two or three others, in different lanes, can really do the trick. These are the drivers who brake for no apparent reason and then, you guessed it, everybody else follows suit.

Left the light on at the house? Boom! Brake time. What, that was the turn-off? Boom! Make those taillights shine.

I think these drivers have some sort of secret club. Cruisers for Chaos is probably what it’s called.

Then, of course, there are the chronically curious. These people will look at anything. And they do, with great care.

You see the look on that guy’s face when the CHP pulled him over? Oh, look at him now. Slow down! I can’t quite make out the words.

“A couple of months ago,” reports our man Joe, “three officers and I were doing a video taping on the median on route 91, near the 605. The whole freeway stopped! We had to get out of there.”

Keep in mind that this was in L.A. County, where filming is old hat. And these were real law enforcement officers out there with Joe. No one could mistake them for stars.

There are other traffic tie-up theories out there, as I’m sure you are aware. “Too many cars” is one that has been mentioned quite a few times. Learned types also give a nod to things such as the placement of on-ramps, how many lane changes it takes to get from here to there and whether the Angels are playing at home tonight.

And regardless of the cause, UC Irvine’s Ray Novaco, a psychologist who specializes in commuter stress, says Orange County’s mean streets are playing havoc with our nerves. He mentions me as a prime example.

“It should lower your frustration level to have an explanation as to what’s causing the tie-up,” he says.

For this I consulted an expert? As I was saying, I think just one little accident, maybe a decoy even, could do wonders.

Dianne Klein’s column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Klein by writing to her at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7406.