This blog post has a lot of good ways to think about traffic.

There is on particular phenomenon I ponder about my commute to work on 45 MPH "stroads" involves the interplay between speeders, slugs and the many stop lights.

I strictly keep to the speed limit during day light and good weather (slower otherwise) and start slowing well in advance to an oncoming red followed by accelerating briskly when red turns to green if not blocked by other users of the road.

The vast majority of the other users have the opposite speed profile. They go well above the speed limit (60+ is not uncommon to see), often passing me at the last second before safely or not so safely stopping at a red and then take their sweet time getting up to the limit (and then beyond) after a green. The fact that most of them drive enormous apartments on wheels perhaps explains some of this behavior.

The main hypothesis I am interested in is that their strategy of speeding to the next red light and lazily getting going at green (if they notice the light change) is actually counter productive to throughput and maximizing average speed. The speeding and the bunching at red coupled with glacial acceleration up to and beyond the limit is far slower than keeping to the speed limit, gradual slowing down (sometimes catching red->green before stopping) and brisk speed up is the winner, assuming not blocked by lumbering behemoths.

That is, stopping is slower than speeding is fast.