401 "Rolling Stop"

Last night on my way home from work, there was an overturned truck in the median where the crews were working on removing it.  The crews were all in the west-bound lanes, I was headed east so not impacted.  There of course was a big gathering of vehicles trying to get around the crews.

The next four interchanges, all of the ramps for traffic to enter the highway westbound were closed.  So there was no traffic at all going westbound - spooky!  Getting closer to home, there was a convoy led by two cruisers just creeping along, with all the backed up traffic in line behind them.

Chatting with my always logical SO, this is apparently a 'rolling stop'.  The clean-up crews and the traffic crews were all synchronizing, to give the clean-up crew time to remove the wreckage ... and not have the travelers on the 401 have to find their way on an emergency detour route.  Likely would take less time for those trapped in the rolling stop, than to actually drive around the road work.

So while I had been thinking how frustrated I would have been to be behind the rolling stop, it most likely works better for everyone - safety for the cleanup crew, safety for the drivers in not having to find their way in unknown territory.  Rather cool solution!