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Where I live there's something called 'block driving' (I haven't found a better translation for the Dutch word 'blokrijden'). On busy summer days, when the highway to the coast is jammed, a police car will block the highway, then drive at a constant speed (and slower than the maximum speed), with no one being allowed to pass the police car. Apparently this helps to resolve the traffic waves.

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The California Highway Patrol appears to do this in Southern California as well. I've seen a patrol car start weaving between two lanes, then three, weaving more and more until it's blocking all lanes of traffic like a weavy pace car.

They do that to slow or stop traffic when there's debris or an accident ahead.

It's called "running a break", and I've only seen it used to clear debris or disabled cars out of lanes, or so that a construction crew can close a lane. It'll freak you out the first time a cop car swerves in front of you across 5 lanes of traffic.

I've definitely seen it used in both Nor Cal and So Cal to slow traffic down. They do it on I-5 fairly often during rush hour, of all times.

That's actually one of the solutions suggested by the author. A rolling blockcade of police cars in each lane to regulate the flow.

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