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 us

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.