[newhavenpatriot]

Is it just me, or does driving the speed limit help to reduce the risk of running into traffic jams? I feel like when it's busy on the Merritt / Wilbur Cross Parkway (a four-lane limited access highway, two lanes each way), if I just drive the speed limit of 55, cars have to slow down and get over to the left lane to pass me, so they kind of "trickle through". If I were to drive 65-70 like everyone else, everyone would kinda just be "pouring through" at a higher speed.

Eventually, this would lead to a bottleneck, because people would be merging on and off the highway and everyone would have to slow down to the speed limit or lower anyway. The way I do it, no one really has to slow down more than about 5 mph at any given time if someone merges on up ahead. So, does this idea of "influencing the speed of the road" ultimately help or hurt our fuel economy? Obviously this wouldn't work as well for roads with two passing lanes, but it seems like the basic idea deserves credence.