While it's true that "sidezoomers" -- those drivers who react to slowing traffic by shooting down the ending lane and assuming that unassertive drivers towards the front will reward their aggression -- will roast in hell, it's also true, as this article says, that a surprisingly large amount of traffic is a collective action problem. Drivers aren't all playing by the same rules, or going the same speed, or agreed on how to deal with mergers, and they react to the uncertainty of every other car's actions by doing the cautious thing: They slow down. Thus, traffic.What's needed is some way to coordinate with the other cars on the road in real time. Presumably, in the future, we'll type our eventual destination into the GPS system and the computers in our cars will interact with smart roads systems that our interacting with all the other cars on the road and drive us there in a maximally efficient way. Then, of course, they'll rebel in the inevitable robot uprising and sit us down on the 405 while the toasters burn our cities. FUTURE TRAFFIC.
While it's true that "sidezoomers" -- those drivers who react to slowing traffic by shooting down the ending lane and assuming that unassertive drivers towards the front will reward their aggression -- will roast in hell, it's also true, as this article says, that a surprisingly large amount of traffic is a collective action problem. Drivers aren't all playing by the same rules, or going the same speed, or agreed on how to deal with mergers, and they react to the uncertainty of every other car's actions by doing the cautious thing: They slow down. Thus, traffic.What's needed is some way to coordinate with the other cars on the road in real time. Presumably, in the future, we'll type our eventual destination into the GPS system and the computers in our cars will interact with smart roads systems that our interacting with all the other cars on the road and drive us there in a maximally efficient way. Then, of course, they'll rebel in the inevitable robot uprising and sit us down on the 405 while the toasters burn our cities. 
