Woo-hoo!

As of 00:01 this morning, I've officially broken my streak. That's right, for the entire month of March I did not receive a moving violation! Since November of last year I have received a moving violation each month, every month. A ticket a month for four months running, but March ended the madness.

However with the California Highway Patrol clearly now a revenue generation program for the state, I'm certainly not out of danger.

Unfortunately, despite the traffic in every urban area of California, the CHP seem unwilling or unable to enforce those parts of the Vehicle Code like §21654 (best summarized by the sign on every California highway: Slower Traffic Keep Right) that would help mitigate congestion. Instead they only pursue drivers who are attempting to alleviate traffic and free available highway capacity by quickly and efficiently proceeding to their destination. Not surprisingly, the fines for violation of speed-related sections like §22349 are significantly greater than those for violating other sections, such as the long-ignored §21654.

(Three guesses about who just recently completed eight hours of traffic school.)

Instead of using the current laws on the books to help clear traffic, the state can only suggest new, larger highways. But anyone who has even a glancing familiarity with computer networking knows that increased bandwidth isn't the only answer. More effective use of the throughput available can also result in greater capacity.

Look, right now most everyone accessing the Internet at home is doing so over copper wires. Many of us use the same copper wires that deliver our phone service. There was a time when those copper wires delivered data at 14.4 kilobits per second (Kbps). Right at this moment I'm getting 1.62 megabits per second (Mbps) over those same old, precariously hanging copper wires.

Remember, Kbps is a thousand bits per second while Mbps is a million bits per second. Without any new wiring to my house (no new highway, no greater bandwidth) I'm getting 112.5% more capacity. How? Better data transmission devices, better compression algorithms, more efficient data packet standards, in short: doing more with what we've got.

Applied to traffic, there are immediate corollaries. Where networking has seen better modems, travelers have available better cars, with faster acceleration, improved handling, and enhanced brakes. (At least for those motorists smart enough not to drive some clunky SUV.)

These modern vehicles allow us to motor more effectively, yet most people still drive as if they were behind the wheel of a 70s land yacht: leaving far too much space in front of them, reacting much too languidly to changes in traffic momentum, and braking much more often than required. So instead of driving efficiencies that correlate to better compression, we have inefficiencies that lead to congestion.

And while computer networks now rely on intelligent, optimized data packets that know their origin and destination and do nothing but strive to get from "A" to "B" in as little time as possible, highways are filled with drivers who are un-optimized, un-focused, and seemingly unwilling to make the effort to proceed.

In short, if we want to stop wasting time and money sitting in traffic, we should look to models of efficiency like computer networking and emulate those models as much as possible. We should stop penalizing those who are trying to optimize driving and start penalizing those who aren't.

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"Woo-hoo!"	Lyric from the song Song 2 by Blur