Word.ws English Dictionary

go with the flow of traffic

go with the flow of traffic verb: to drive a vehicle at approximately the speed of other vehicles on the road, irrespective of the speed limit.

Verb

go with the flow of traffic (third-person singular simple present goes with the flow of traffic, present participle going with the flow of traffic, simple past went with the flow of traffic, past participle gone with the flow of traffic)

  1. (idiomatic) To drive a vehicle at approximately the speed of other vehicles on the road, irrespective of the speed limit.
    • I was just going with the flow of traffic, and I just happened to look down and I was going a little bit faster than the speed limit.2017, Stefan Gossling, The Psychology of the Car: Automobile Admiration, page 160
    • "You don't have to do this, guy" yelled the passenger as he sat there fidgeting in his chair, "we are only trying to go with the flow of traffic, you know?"2017, J. R. Bouchard, The Plan, page 281
  2. (idiomatic) To drive so as to blend in with traffic.
    • I had to get Sera off it as soon as I could, and the fastest way to do that was to go with the flow of traffic heading toward Brooklyn.2015, Greg Hogben, My Daughter's Army, page 67
    • She decided to go with the flow of traffic and let it take her through the city and out the other side, with a stop at one of the big supermarkets at the busiest time of the day to shop for the week's groceries en route.2013, Quentin Bates, Chilled to the Bone: An Icelandic Thriller, page 19

Forms of go with the flow of traffic

third-person singular presentgoes with the flow of traffic
present participlegoing with the flow of traffic
pastwent with the flow of traffic
past participlegone with the flow of traffic

Origin of go with the flow of traffic

Here, flow is used in the sense of "direction of movement."

Questions about go with the flow of traffic

What does go with the flow of traffic mean?
Go with the flow of traffic means to drive a vehicle at approximately the speed of other vehicles on the road, irrespective of the speed limit.
What part of speech is go with the flow of traffic?
Go with the flow of traffic is a verb.
What is the past tense of go with the flow of traffic?
The past tense of go with the flow of traffic is went with the flow of traffic.

Words near go with the flow of traffic in the dictionary

  1. go Winchester
  2. go with
  3. go with a swing
  4. go with one's gut
  5. go with the flow
  6. go with the flow of traffic
  7. go with the territory
  8. go with the turf
  9. go with the wind
  10. go without
  11. go without saying

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: go with the flow of traffic (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “go with the flow of traffic.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/go_with_the_flow_of_traffic. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.