There was a fun blog post several years ago, which has stuck with me ever since, and I think about it every time I'm stuck in a traffic jam. It was a one-man experiment in "fixing" traffic jams, by willfully slowing to the point where he no longer had to stop/start and could maintain a steady speed. He found that traffic behind him would "unkink", making the drive for everyone behind him a bit more pleasant/safe/consistent. He also found that many drivers would become angry at him, because he was going slower than the cars around him...but the cars around him were speeding up only to have to stop soon after to wait for traffic. Many people are, frankly, too stupid to be in control of a couple thousand pounds of rolling death...but, it'll be a challenge to get people to give up that control.
Hopefully, the ability to read, play games, watch TV, etc. while being driven to work will be sufficient to make people willing to let their smart cars take over the roads. As you note, traffic jams will become a thing of the past in most cases; self-driving cars can also factor in traffic data, weather information, etc. in ways that a human driver probably can't easily/effectively do, making them safer and more efficient in a lot of other regards.
That's right. What you describe has been automated as an adaptive cruise control.
Almost a decade ago, traffic studies demonstrated that if only 20% of cars used adaptive cruise control, then traffic jams would be greatly diminished at then-peak carrying capacity. Or more cars could be carried on a particular road before traffic jams occurred.
Adaptive Cruise Control is currently a feature on many luxury cars, but will trickle down to mass market cars during the transition to driverless vehicles.
A similar effect is in play with 'metering light' systems - total
throughput may be increased (counter-intuitively) by reducing
localized traffic densities and smoothing irregularities in flow.
But people tend to perceive speed more readily than time to destination,
and tend not to be very aware of total traffic throughput at all.
Hopefully, the ability to read, play games, watch TV, etc. while being driven to work will be sufficient to make people willing to let their smart cars take over the roads. As you note, traffic jams will become a thing of the past in most cases; self-driving cars can also factor in traffic data, weather information, etc. in ways that a human driver probably can't easily/effectively do, making them safer and more efficient in a lot of other regards.