I think mandatory self driving mode in highly congested areas is the more sure fire way to defeat traffic jams. The reason why traffic jams exist in the first p

I think mandatory self driving mode in highly congested areas is the more sure fire way to defeat traffic jams. The reason why traffic jams exist in the first place is because of issues that arise from the limitations a human driver poses. For example, imagine a scenario where somebody from Southern California who has never been to San Francisco is driving up 101 to visit a cousin who just moved to the city. Neither have GPS or phones and are having to get to their destination using a printed out Google Maps sheet. Now imagine that this driver is on the highway and is in a hurry because they are running late. They don't know where they are really going and all of a sudden they spot that the exit they need to take is in 1/2 mile. And let's assume they made the bigger mistake of thinking it was a good idea to try and get into the city at 5 AM. So they are now in heavy congestion, but most people are used to this traffic and have no issue maintaining the speed limit. However, the tourist driver needs to catch their exit. So what does she do? Start merging right, right, right, right. And guess what they are in a hurry, so while she is merging right she is having to cut other people off. Otherwise they will miss their exit and be even more screwed. And therefore she is a contributing force when it comes to the underlying conditions that result in stand still traffic. There is nothing you can really do about this dilemma. Everybody on the road heading to San Francisco during it's most congested hours are doing so because they have jobs. It's not like a Carbon Tax is all of a sudden going to cut down on traffic when people need to drive to work in order to make a living. Most people who are on the road, aren't driving without some sort of living necessity in mind at the other end of their destination. Taxation doesn't promote better behavior. Rather it further penalizes those who can barely afford to drive as it is. And it just further taxes the wealthy which if you add up every last cent the top 50% (because all of that 1% of 1% babble is just a scapegoat to distract who we are really talking about when discussing taxation) already is obligated to pay, it becomes something around 35-50% of all non capital gains earned income. And let's not forget that if you are religious there is often a tithe obligation to tack on to that. I just don't understand why taxation is always deemed the magical solution to try and curb these kind of issues. The only reason why we should ever have to spend a cent over a universal 15% flat tax, is so the government can use that revenue to start buying back our debt before we are faced with the dilemma that we need to borrow more than we could ever hope to pay the interest on.