I read once that the L.A. freeways carry something like four times the traffic they did 30 years ago, and yet average commute times have stayed the same. Basically, everyone's driving the same speed they always did, just closer together.
Yep. I merged into traffic dowtown one day, matched speeds, everything is flowing, and noticed that everyone was within a foot or so of each other - and we were all going over 80mph. There was NO WAY there would be adequate reaction time in an accident. BUT - whenever I slowed down to put more of a gap betwen myself and the car in front of me, someone would pull into the gap! I'm used to fast driving, but that close together, it felt like an Indy 500 pack. No thanks!
Thank God nothing happened, but MAN I was glad to get outta there!