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Comment by karthikb | Hacker News Reader

The traffic break is usually used to scan the road for debris, or to create an opening for emergency services down the road to stage without having to completely shut the road down. Not typically used for flow management - having driven daily in SD, LA, and the Bay Area, I personally see it maybe once every 4-5 years.

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> The traffic break is usually used to scan the road for debris, or to create an opening for emergency services down the road to stage without having to completely shut the road down. Not typically used for flow management - having driven daily in SD, LA, and the Bay Area, I personally see it maybe once every 4-5 years.

I've seen "traffic breaks" done to catch motorcyclists. Completely stops traffic with hundreds and hundreds of cars just to catch one guy speeding - not really worth it imo. Sometimes it's for debris but see plenty of pulling over too...

It's just anecdotal, but I often saw it done in LA; weekly to monthly. Since I would get stuck in them I'd often seem them start or end them. I never once saw any correlation to road debris or emergency services.

Any staging for construction or emergency services were done with a slow moving truck dropping cones or flares put down in a zipper-like fashion, corralling cars into open lanes or into exits.

Yeah I see that kinda stuff at least a few times a year in the Bay Area. There's so much detritus on the roads I imagine they're just trying to remove the biggest of the hazards.

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