"As of late last week, that question was probably on the lips of 6,552 drivers who had been caught on just three days in the city's latest crackdown on the scourge of gridlock, or what traffic specialists call 'spillback,' in which a single intersection is blocked by cars that fail to get through before the light changes. (Strictly defined, gridlock occurs when spillback ties up traffic around an entire square block and offending drivers end up pretty much blocking themselves.)"
—Randy Kennedy, "At the Corner of Gridlock and Groan," The New York Times, September 12, 1999