Testing The Hypothesis

1.      U.S. is the world leader in traffic jams

2.     The who: Drivers in the U.S.

The what: People are spending countless hours in traffic every year and it is costing people a lot of money in direct and indirect costs.

The why: Traffic happens for many reasons. Early morning and afternoon rush hour are inescapable but having hours of traffic due to accidents is something that can be fixed. There are traffic jams that are caused by very minuscule reasons and if they were dealt with right away, it could save a lot of people time and money.

3.     I believe that this an opportunity that can be exploited and be resolved in the future. I think a resolution needs to be implemented relatively quickly because this problem affects many things including making people late to their obligations, costing people money, and it is also bad for the environment.

·       Testing the who: This is a problem that affects people across the world who drive cars. This affects the environment due to fuel consumption and car pollution. These cars that are stuck in traffic release emissions and create air pollution which contributes to global warming.

·       Testing the what: Traffic isn’t only a problem in big cities. A lot of traffic jams occur on highways that run from city to city. Traffic jams that are caused by an inconsiderate driver who has some problem that is relatively small and ends up blocking a lane and causes a traffic jam.

·       Testing the why: The problem can be rooted from many things like not having enough lanes on the road or accidents that are not cleared up fast enough. People on the road that have problems with their cars and don’t pull off the road.

4.     Interviewee #1: Noah Rodriguez

Noah is from Pembroke Pines, Fl. I asked him if he deals with traffic often when he lived in Pembroke Pines. He says he would only deal with traffic in the mornings on the way to school. He says that the drive home takes about half the time than the drive to school. Noah says he blames the traffic on the other students and staff driving to the school at the same time and trying to enter the only parking lot entrance of the school.

Interviewee #2: Nina Albino

Nina is from Miami Fl. and says she cannot stand the way people drive around her. She says people always drive very erratically and are trying to get to where they are going as fast as they can. She told me she lives by the palmetto highway and that it is always backed up because of an accident or little fender benders that don’t move out of the way. She says no matter the time of day that it is she always ends up running into the traffic on the palmetto.

Interviewee #3: Amadeo Gonzales

Amadeo used to live just outside New York city and is a sustainability’s major. He said he’s dealt with traffic in and around New York city all the time and not only during rush hours. He says some highways always had traffic on them during the day. Amadeo’s family owned a smart car and were advocates of trying to sustain the environment. I asked him if he would drive in traffic often or try to avoid it and he said it was almost impossible to avoid because it was all around him. He said waiting in traffic wasn’t his biggest concern, but that traffic was contributing to global warming. He says it was sometimes difficult to breathe where he lived because of all the emissions cars in traffic were releasing. The air pollution is what bothered Amadeo the most and he seemed upset that nothing was being done about it.

Interviewee #4: Tanner Redding

Tanner lives in South Florida near Ft. Lauderdale and says traffic wasn’t the biggest problem for him because he drives a motorcycle. He says he could maneuver through traffic relativity easily because he would drive between stopped cars in traffic and zip right past everyone. I thought that this was dangerous because what if a car wanted to change lanes right when he was passing them and didn’t see him. He said he was aware that it was sort of dangerous but that he always is aware of cars trying to change lanes. Tanner spoke as if he had the solution to getting past traffic.

Interviewee #5: Mateo Galiano

Mateo is from Baltimore, MD. and says traffic in the area he is from isn’t bad because there are too many cars on the road but that there are too many accidents in his area. He says he sees an accident every other day. He says his city is one of the most dangerous cities to drive in because there are so many accidents. I could only imagine the frustration of people in the area who are constantly hitting unexpected traffic jams due to accidents. It turns out Baltimore has one of the highest rates of car accidents every year. That must mean a lot of traffic jams are occurring unexpectedly and costing people money and making them late to where they were going.

5.     It is easy to see that traffic is a problem all over the place and there are many reasons that cause traffic. I know that hitting traffic unexpectedly is in my opinion the worst type of traffic because you cannot leave early to compensate for the traffic. This kind of traffic is due to accidents or people having problems with their cars.