Traffic jams. You could say the phrase is positive, because when you’re stuck in traffic you have extra time to listen to your favorite jams.

But don’t say that. Sitting in traffic jams is a losing proposition. You lose time at work. You lose family time. And sometimes, well, you lose your shit.

I can’t eliminate road rage and traffic jams, but I can put a dent in reduce the time we spend in snaky, snarly lines of traffic. Disclaimer: I need every driver in America to read and obey this essay.

That’s a lot to disclaim, I know. But I do have an answer, which, like most solutions to life’s problems, I learned in my years as a baseball dad. Cap-tip here to my friend David Couch, perhaps the most complete baseball coach either of my sons ever had. (David coached my second son, Clay, when he was 9. Clay, not David.)

Coach Couch told his Reds that when they’re in the field, playing defense, they should move forward with each pitch. Just a little. Not a lunge or a lurch, but a subtle move. Take small, almost unnoticeable steps. Creep toward the batter.

By making tiny shifts toward the plate, Coach Couch would say, you are ever-so-slightly building forward momentum, and if the ball is put in play, you’ll already be in motion. Your first step to the ball will be quicker because you started it before the ball was struck. If you have to stop or go the opposite way, you can, because you weren’t lurching or lunging. You were only creeping: employing subtle movement toward your target.

And your target as a driver, ladies and gentlemen, is the other side of the intersection before the damn light turns red.

In a perfect world of traffic, all of us would react immediately to the green light and go—fast. With each driver accelerating quickly as the light turned, the entire column of cars would, as a group, rocket forward to the desired cruising speed. Traffic lights would be perfectly timed so we would all achieve rapid (but safe) advancement.

But our traffic world is far from perfect. And one significant problem is that the drivers in front of you react slowly to the green light. They might have been texting or dozing or zoned out, and they don’t notice that it’s time to go until a few car lengths open up in front of them. And you know what would fit nicely into those empty car lengths? More cars! These drivers are dawdlers, and every dawdler that gets a late jump creates more unused space that delays the drivers behind them.

Also slowing you down are fainthearts. Overly cautious drivers, fainthearts intentionally allow space to build between themselves and the car in front. They remember well the drivers’ manual that prescribed ample stopping distance as a defense against certain death on the highway. Of course, you’re not on the highway with its high speeds. You’re in city traffic. Doing 4 mph.

According to my complex traffic models and scientific calculations, these unnecessary gaps between vehicles decrease traffic flow by 28 percent. Admittedly, my traffic models and calculations were created in my head while I was sitting in traffic.

It’s fair to say, though, that by eliminating the needless spaces that drivers create—either through inattention or fear—more cars could get through an intersection. Maybe yours, too. It’s that 28 percent inefficiency I seek to correct, which would make drivers more likely to get to work on time and get home sooner to their families (and Netflix), and less likely to become road ragers.

One common action is no help at all. Often I’ll see dawdlers snap to it and give it the gas, quickly eating up the 30 or so yards of slack they created with their negligence. But for the rest of us to catch up, we must similarly rocket forward, and as we discussed earlier in our perfect-world scenario, that ain’t happenin’.

So you must creep. Just like a second baseman on Coach Couch’s Reds, you’ve got to creep forward as the pitch is thrown—or, in this case, as the light loses its redness. If everyone is creeping, you’re all on the move sooner. You’re not rocketing, but you’re advancing. And as you advance to, say, 5 or 6 mph, then you can allow a little space between you and the guy in front of you. It’s more efficient to cede space on the move than from a dead stop.

It’s all part of my 28 percent plan for improvement. When everybody creeps in traffic, more of us can get through the light. We’ll get to work or home sooner. And your jams? Just play “Life Is a Highway,” “Shut Up and Drive” and maybe “Hot Rod Lincoln.”