Driver memory: Motorist selection and retention of individualized headways in highway traffic

The paper presents evidence that (1) drivers have different personalities in that they follow vehicles at different headways, and (2) drivers retain their personalities in that each driver tends to maintain his headway over space and, in some instances, drivers return to their headways after being forced by a traffic disturbance to alter them temporarily. This attribute, which we term driver memory, is revealed by visual inspection of modified curves of measured cumulative vehicle arrival number versus time.