Gridlock

We've all been there - some of us several times each week. You're in your car on the interstate. There is no cross-traffic on the road ahead. There are no stoplights. Yet, for some reason, you're not moving. And neither are the hundreds of cars in front of you and behind you. Somewhere, a mile or ten in front of you, traffic is moving at normal highway speeds. But not you. As far as you know, it feels like gridlock.

How does it start? Someone changes lanes and the driver of the car behind them lifts their foot off the accelerator. The guy behind him taps his break. The guy behind him brakes a little more forcefully. Eventually, if there are enough cars on the road, everyone comes to a stop.

I hate traffic jams.

I actually have a theory that the cause of all traffic jams is one (and only one) late 80's model Astro mini-van who's driver is torturing all of us by driving at 50mph in the left lane and then inexplicably changing to lanes to the right with little warning. Have you seen this van? Much like Santa can hit every house in the world on Christmas Eve, this Astro mini-van can clog the infrastructure of every major city simultaneously. If you see this van on the road, please let me know.

So what's the solution to gridlock? Some would advocate practical solutions such as ride-sharing or using public transportation. But that's too practical for my tastes. Actually, it's a bit unreasonable, since the nearest stop to my office is a mile and a half away. Nothing like walking 30 minutes in a suit on the side of a busy road with no sidewalk - especially in inclement weather. But I digress.

My solution to avoiding gridlock sounds a bit more pie-in-the-sky, but it can be summed up in two words - flying cars. Where are they? George Jetson owned one almost fifty years ago. Yes, that was a cartoon that was set in the future, but here we are in the future and there aren't any flying cars. We've got other innovations from The Jetsons. we've got videoconferencing. we've got moving sidewalks. But not a hint of a flying car. Is there not one engineer among the six billion people on earth that is working on this idea?

Please don't tell me that if everyone had a flying car, we'd have traffic jams in the sky. Please don't tell me all the practical reasons why the idea of a flying car is impractical. I don't need your pessimism. Don't steal my dream.