h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

When in a traffic jam on a road with more than one lane going your direction the most annoying phenomena will occur.
the other cars in the other lane/-s will appear to go much faster than you. the only real problem is when you try to change lane to the faster one your previous lane will speed up and the lane you're going in will immidiatley stop. if you on the other hand stay in your lane nothing will happen, just watch all the other cars passing you, because whatever you do you wont travel faster than another lane...
don't ask me why it happens, it just happens, it's like a natural law: E=mc2, F=ma, Other lanes=faster, g~9.8 m/s2

Just try to travel by train or subway or something which isn't depending on traffic jams!!

When I was taking physics, the intructor explained that there is an actual fromula to describe the movement of traffic. He explained that traffic was a fluid, and the equations describing fluids applied.

Unfortunatly, I don't remeber very much of the class icluding the fromulas that applied.

Two Bit Trigger Pumping Physicist