Mickey Kaus in
Slate posts on the idea that:
"traffic in Los Angeles (and, perhaps, elsewhere) gets horrifically jammed every year right after the switchover from Daylight Savings Time. What's interesting is that this seems to be a purely sociological phenomenon rather than a technological one. As best as I can figure it out, what happens is roughly this: [some people get up by the clock; some by their body rhythms. That results in a changed distribution of drivers, meaning jams.]
As a retired bureaucrat who no longer drives in rush hour traffic and who lives 2500 miles away from LA, I'm well qualified to correct Kaus' answer:
It's also the strangeness. People get used to driving under certain conditions--the amount of sun in your eyes, the glare, the general ambience. Changes to and from DST upset that comfort level--all of a sudden the sun is in your eyes, you slow down as you flip the sun visor down. In near saturation traffic, it requires only the smallest disturbance in traffic flow to upset the whole deal. Change will do that.
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