SDEROT, Israel (AP) -- Six months after Israel ended its bruising offensive against Gaza Strip militants, the people of this rocket-scarred border town are enjoying their calmest stretch in recent memory.
The rocket attacks that made life unbearable have all but stopped. Playgrounds are filled with children on summer vacation, stores are bustling and the town's public swimming pool is open for the first time in five years."People are out more. There is movement. There is a different atmosphere," said Avigail Hazan, a 42-year-old storekeeper. "It was worth going through the war for this. It's fun now; I'm calm."
"Life before the war - it wasn't life," agreed the town's deputy mayor, Rafik Agaronov. "Now, thank God, there is quiet. Hopefully it will stay like this forever. If our children are calm, we are calm."
Israel's anger and frustration over the incessant rocket fire on this working-class town less than a mile from Gaza's border was the loudly proclaimed reason for its invasion of Gaza. The fact that the attacks have all but ended has improved the atmosphere and set the stage for possible talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
The heavy rocket fire brought life in Sderot to a virtual standstill as hundreds fled to get out of range. Those who stayed behind kept close to home and to their fortified shelters.Israel's massive air and ground assault, which began last December, killed more than 1,100 Palestinians, wounded thousands more and caused massive destruction.
Despite a backlash of international criticism and war crimes allegations, Israel says the assault achieved its primary goal of stopping the rocket fire. Israeli officials believe the offensive proved to be a powerful deterrent, though they also say Gaza's Hamas rulers are using the lull to rearm.
Perhaps the most visible change in town is the reopening of the Olympic-size pool, providing a welcome place to cool off from the sweltering Israeli summer. In recent years, the rocket attacks made the pool too dangerous to enter."The kids missed this, they needed this," said Zion Peretz, the pool manager, as campers jumped into the water behind him. "It's given us a joy for life again."
But not everyone has been able to erase old memories that quickly.
Experts have warned of long-lasting psychological damage inflicted on Sderot's 24,000 residents, particularly children, who suffer from exceptionally high rates of anxiety and bed-wetting compared to other Israeli children, according to local psychologists.
Yaeli Biton says she is still under psychological care and takes daily anxiety medication.
"I hear a car screech, a refrigerator door slam, the air conditioner make noise, and I panic," said the 50-year-old Biton. "It's been like this for eight years. The feeling doesn't go away in one day."
Many in Sderot said they believe the current calm won't last, and that Hamas was using the tranquil period to prepare for another round of fighting. That looming possibility is evident in the barricaded shelters scattered throughout town. Even the pool has a safe room for bathers to scamper to in case of emergency.
Still, residents say they can't remember a better time for their hard-hit town. On cooler evenings, it's not unusual to see people drinking a beer with their neighbors outside their homes, or playing backgammon or chess in the park.
Dina Keinan, who owns a bike store, said her sales have increased in recent months.
"People didn't buy bicycles because they were afraid to ride them for long periods," she said. "It's different now."
Atara Orenbouch, a 37-year-old mother of six, said life in Sderot was "almost a normal life." Her children can now walk around freely like all other Israeli children.
I used to be quite amused when scientists would run traffic tests and just could not figure out why there were traffic jams! Everyone who drove could!
I even figured out how to figure it all out. Create a computer program with a highways, roads, exits, on-ramps, redlights, and the such like.
Then, ALL YOU HAVE TO DO, is make a bunch of “cars” with different parameters. ABC Cars take off like a rabbit at a green light…DEF cars take off a bit slower…and XYZ cars take off like molasses.
Then, on the interstate, you have people who exceed the speed limit, go the speed limit, and then those people who ought to be sent to prison.
Further, you permit some of the slow pokes to get in the left lane every now and then.
Also, people have different braking prowess…this means there will be wreaks at times…which causes rubbernecking until its cleaned up.
Then there’s my personal pet peeve: People who don’t know how to merge. The traffic is doing 70…and they get on doing 45…slowing everyone down.
How to fix it?
Imprison anyone who does not know how to merge correctly (or even death penalty if they’re over 40, which means they’ve been doing it for years!).
I would also add that if an accident could be gotten COMPLETELY out of view (including all the flashing lights, etc.), traffic wouldn’t slow down! So, if you have a fender bender, don’t stop in the lane…get off to the side…miles to the side, if possible.
Lastly, police ticket drivers in the left lane going under the speed limit (assuming normal conditions). This alone would reduce the national blood pressure by at least 20%.
In this instance, I am all for profiling, whether it be racial, gender, age, or whatever. If we find that a particular group of people are the worst offenders, they must be send to the penitentiary and given “Driver Sensitivity Training” until they actually know how to drive.
You might also be able to interpret relevant excerpts from the..."Emergent Phenomenon in Congested Traffic Flow"
(Daniel Vandervelde's final physics term paper submitted on 5-6-04) --Good Luck. :o)
Their process involves setting up the lattice or highway and then, “A domain of
size k is then associated with a site of the CM occupied by k particles. One then proceeds
by examining the evolution of the domains, and identifying their dynamical processes. As will be demonstrated, in many cases these processes are closely related to the diffusion and the chipping processes of the asymmetric CM.” The density of the automobiles tells the story of the movement of the vehicles. First they consider what they call the “cruise control limit”. This is where the probability of braking occurring is zero, in other words all cars are maintaining a constant velocity. There, as long as the density stays below some density max, free flowing traffic persists. Here all cars are moving deterministically, and one can express the current as J( )= max v . As density increases, local jams form and current reduces. This leads to the conclusion that a phase transition, if one exists, must occur at some 0
less than or equal to f .
This study also had some revealing results regarding the flow of vehicles out from
a jam. It was found that the outflow of traffic from a jam will self organize, creating a
critical state of maximum throughput. This state was achieved when the emergent traffic
jams were just able to survive indefinitely. “This implies that the intrinsic flow rate for
vehicles leaving a jam equals maximum throughput.” Results of this study show that
maximum throughput is actually achieved when the left boundary condition is that of an
infinitely large jam, and the right boundary condition is left open. This is explained by,
“An intuitive explanation is that maximum throughput cannot be any higher than the
intrinsic flow rate out of a jam. Otherwise the flow rate into a jam would be higher than
the flow rate out, and the jam would be stable in the long time limit, thus reducing the
overall current. By definition, of course, the maximum throughput cannot be lower than
this intrinsic flow rate.” It is true that the maximum throughput selection is something which is intrinsic in driven diffusive systems. This model differs though in that the left boundary condition is that of the front of the infinite jam drifting backward in time. “If the left boundary is fixed in space and vehicles are inserted at velocities less than max v , then the outflow from a jam cannot reach maximum throughput”. This is
particular notable since real world situations where one has a disturbance which cannot
move, like onramps or reductions in lanes, lead to lower throughput downstream than the theory would predict.
Has anyone found a simpler explanation for traffic jams on open highways having no bottleneck and no traffic accident? If so, please share it with me. Please!