Coming up with a quanbreastative answer is one of those math problems that I won't even approach -- the rusted weapons and armor at the mouth of the cave and the glowing red eyes inside are enough.
As an intuitive guess, I'd say it wastes a huge amount of time, at least for the people who could and would go faster if only the drivers ahead would make some attempt to sort themselves by speed, and also contributes to some accidents.1
Rubberneckers -- Make 'em sit in a penalty box by the side of the road for ten or fifteen minutes. I can't count how many times I've been in a traffic jam caused solely by people slowing down to gape at someone else's misfortune.
Hey, maybe that's a better solution. The cops cordon off an area where rubberneckers can pay to PARK and enjoy their schadenfreude off the road. Everybody else has to keep their scan predominantly forward where it belongs and move along at all prudent speed.
If you want to see a wrecked car, go to a junkyard. You can look at it as long as you want and not inconvenience anybody.
Left-lane bandits -- Sand in the gears of society's attempt to get from A to B with safety and efficiency. Here I refer not to people who are staying left for a while because they see something happening up ahead and to the right like a merging truck, or because they are completing (if you will) a macropbutt, but because they like to cruise there no faster than the traffic to the right. 2 This of course mixes like potbuttium and water with people who are in a hurry and thus start weaving in and out of traffic.
Multi-lane urban freeways that are not quite chockablock with traffic are the best opportunity to see the cost of this. Often there is plenty of room more toward the right, if only people had the self-discipline to stay there when driving slowly. Alternately -- hey, the one under your right foot makes it go faster.
Oh, yes, and signs reading something like EXIT 2 MILES seems to be considered semantically equivalent to STAY LEFT AS LONG AS YOU CAN, OR EVEN MERGE LEFT FOR ONE LAST BURST OF SPEED, THEN EXPECT THE WATERS TO PART BEFORE YOU IN THE LAST HUNDRED YARDS. I see that sort of thing a lot lately. Either the conservative and safe strategy for overcooking an exit (steady on and double back at the next one) is not taught anymore, or some people's sense of self-importance outweighs other people's desire to retain their front bumper.
Maybe these people are the same ones who think LANE ENDS MERGE LEFT means the same thing as a right turn signal up ahead of you, i.e., LAST CHANCE TO MERGE RIGHT AND Pbutt.
Grab the vines real tight when you swing, 'cuz it's a jungle out there, --Joe
1 Twice I've watched someone crash because he was rubbernecking an earlier accident by the side of the road -- practically under the nose of the policeman attending to said accident -- instead of watching where he was going.
In one of these incidents, the culprit was in a Ford Ranger middie-truck from before rear antilock brakes became a common feature. As I watched in my mirror, he came boiling up to the back of the pack far too fast, saw the sea of brake lights way too late, and couldn't think of anything to do except stomp the brake pedal.
The truck skidded right, kinda tripped over its own feet, and rolled, coming to rest upside down and facing backward in the left lane. The driver was unhurt and, even more amazingly, put on this mini air show in the morning commute without hitting anyone.
2 Don't even get me started on the left-lane bandit's open-road evil twin: the cruise-control addict who does not want to disturb The Peace That Understandeth Not Pbutting in order to go noticeably faster than the people he's overtaking -- no matter how many people stack up behind him as he oozes past , or how the problem-solving of the people in the right lane is knocked for a loop by his glacial advancement in their mirrors.
