The whole premise of this seems to be that there is a "me" or "I" who drives only for essentaial reasons, never to the mall, only at the right (offpeak) times of day, exactly at (neither over nor under) the speed limit, completely defensively, always in a carpool, without entertaining any distractions like cell phones or coffee and with nothing but generosity of spirit for his fellow drivers. And that EVERYONE ELSE out there is screwing up the karma of his commute by not being exactly like him. Well that "me" or "I" doesn't exist.

We all violate one, some or all of these principals when we drive. Roads used to more or less accommodate this behavior, but they don't anymore. Why? The problem (even if it applies only 10% of time on any road) most certainly IS that there are too many people and too few roads. The problem is not so much HOW we drive, but THAT we drive. And until we get serious about mass transit in this country, the problem will only continue.

The more you brake, the less you are observing conditions. Worn out brake pads are a signal you drive too agressively.

Of course, I use my gears to slow down too...so you can cheat. But principal is the same. Slowing down quickly means you have not anticipated correctly.

As for not braking suddenly- the best way to do this is to maintain a decent following distance with the car in front of me, but then the aggros all cut into my buffer, and I have to slow down to create the buffer again, only to have it breached again... what's a responsible driver to do?

And as far as merging goes- if people kept distance between themselves and the car in front of them to allow for the 'zipper effect' it would go much smoother.

Tailgating is the cause of most traffic problems in my mind.

Even when driving the speed limit in the slow lane people tail gate, even with an open passing lane. What is this incessent need of people to do this? Fear of open space? Is it psychological or something?

Yes, we drive how we live and we're doomed by our own behavior--Americans are selfish, inconsiderate, aggressive individualists who curry a "Me vs. the World" attitude, and it shows on the roads and makes congestion worse than it otherwise would be. OK, but to then say that cancerous, low-density suburban sprawl doesn't add to the problem is rather silly, isn't it? Aside from the fact that such sprawl makes it a necessity for so many to own cars and drive long distances, isn't suburban sprawl itself a consequence of the very American character traits I just listed? That is, if Americans didn't suffer from such a tragedy of the commons, if they were more public and community-minded to begin with, more empathetic and compassionate, more considerate of others and tolerant of others, more interconnected, more willing to live in close proximity, then suburbia would have never mutated into the unforgiving monster that is strangling us now. Suburbia was a very American invention with roots in the very sociocultural and personality traits that the author says cause people to drive the way they do now. Thus, at the very least there's an indirect link between suburban sprawl and increasing traffic congestion, isn't there?

Besides, I always take what the traffic scientists say with a grain of salt. When I lived in the Twin Cities nearly a decade ago, all the freeway on-ramps in the metro area were metered, meaning only one or at most two cars could enter and merge at one time for hours in the morning and afternoon. The traffic engineers said this was to dramatically reduce congestion on the freeways and keep things flowing smoothly. Huh. Well, I can say that there was still bad traffic, still congestion (especially at the poorly-designed bottlenecks for which the Twin Cities are notorious), and that whatever lessening effect the metered ramps had on freeway traffic congestion was more than wiped out by the ridiculous INCREASE in traffic congestion in all the neighborhoods and on all the side streets leading up to freeway interchanges and on-ramps! You wouldn't believe some of the snaking, lengthy back-ups that ensued at major freeway interchanges as a result, and how slowly they moved. The traffic congestion problem wasn't alleviated, it was merely transferred from the freeways to the side streets that LED to the freeways. Brilliant. It led to an uproar, and even though the traffic engineers stuck by their guns, they were eventually forced to turn off all the meters for a lengthy "experimental" period to see if the freeway traffic got worse or stayed much the same. That's when I moved away, so I'm not sure if they ever restored the meter system as it was, modified it, or abolished it altogether, but public (and even some governmental) sentiment was running very strongly against it when I left town.

Now I live in a mid-sized city that has moderate, occasionally bad traffic (mostly due to a crazy street plan caused by topographic features and bodies of water, and also a paucity of major highways). The drivers are generally polite and considerate and use their signals, etc. but the biggest issue I have here is that there are too many aggressive speed limit enforcers among the general public, like it's their Gawd-given duty to police the highways and make sure people are doing the speed limit, if even that fast (there are many, many under-the-limit drivers here too, which irritates the hell out of me). They're also reluctant to move over to let others pass them (or ignorant that that's what the law says they should do). I'm not a bad driver or an asshole, and if I speed it's not by much, but let me tell you, when you encounter multiple members of the "55 and under" brigade working seemingly as a team and spread across multiple lanes of freeway at once, with large open stretches of road in front of them, it's enough to make your blood boil, especially when it happens during the morning commute.