(I’m not talking about the latest dance or even harpooning big semi-trucks on long stretches of the interstate where only one or two off ramps fly by every hour or so. Come to think of it, why not grab on to those double semis for a ride—just aim the harpoon at their rear bumperlock and—wham—you reel yourself in and then take a snooze as those miles tick away. They already carry so many tons they won’t notice you, even in your monster SUV.
But that’s different idea about Putting Fun Back into Driving. Today’s idea is about getting to work, buying groceries and picking up your kids on Saturday driving on crowded freeways.)
Freeways have a problem. You know that. Most say there are too many cars.
But, saying too many cars is just thinking backwards. The best way to figure what’s going on is to think about speed. Now, cars go fast when there’s lots of room but when cars get close together they slow way down. That’s the problem.
Remember: not too many cars; just too many slow cars.
So, what to do. Think about the weather. It knows how to handle this problem. When winds get crowded by mountains they just blow harder over the top. You want to fly a really big kite-don’t go where it’s flat and open; go up on top of a mountain where the clouds bunch up. You can have a kite as big as your car.
We need cars to do what the winds do. When you are in a jam just go like crazy.
People do the opposite, though. When it gets crowded they slow down and even stop. At first, going slow sounds reasonable—if you get close, then you can bump and bumps are better going slow and worse going fast. But you don’t want to bump at all, not even going slow. So the slow-go is over if we can have a no-bump car.
The real question is how to do the no-bump. Think about driving even closer together. How can I hit you if you are holding me, like clenches in boxing. Or like the harpoons for semis. Every car is hooked tight together and dragged along really fast.
No wrecks. No slowdowns. No worries about reaction times from those bad drivers, dilly-dallying along, talking on their cell phones, having a cup of coffee, and God knows what else, as the car in front jams on its brakes and then after a few seconds it starts slugging along again.
OK you say, but this sounds like a train. Who cares. You have your own car. You go fast and won’t be late for the kids.
It does mean that freeway entrances will be tricky. Instead of going one at a time with those weird red lights that make us wait to enter the hiway, we will just queue up really close together and hook bumperlocks. Then a big puller comes and whisks off twenty or thirty cars at a time. Then you can dilly-dally all you want. Or talk on the phone. Who cares.
