The way I see it, good traffic flow is a giant collective effort by everybody on the road. The more people on the road, the more important it is that everybody do their part. If traffic is light it doesn’t really matter if one guy is going considerably slower than the flow of traffic–people will just pass him. When traffic is heavy however, that guy will gather an enormous traffic jam behind him, snarling traffic for miles.
Of course considering a world where everybody tries to optimize aggregate traffic flow is just fantasy thinking. It’s like imagining an airline that didn’t have to deal with wind resistance.
Maybe self driving cars will eventually lead us to the promised land. I wouldn’t expect to see this in my lifetime however.
I also don’t share your typical Boinger’s love of roundabouts. Precision driving around a curve while making quick merges in places where a guy not following the rules of the road is going to be in your blind spot is just not fun. They always make me nervous, because merging into a guy is going to be my fault when the cops come, even if he shouldn’t have been there. Also you have the guys who wander out of their lane because they’re using too much brainpower reading signs and checking for merges instead of keeping their wheels between the lines.
