Ultimately, everything about driving comes down to the quality of the traffic flow.

Every element of driving either improves or impairs that flow.  Can we test whether our new paradigm, developed in the pure light of driving’s own intrinsic logic, optimizes the quality of traffic flow?  Does a standard or ideal exist?  Is there some sign, a prize, an affirmation?  Is there a Holy Grail?

 The Traffic Carom

I was introduced to the term, “traffic carom,” by my first boss in driver education, Benjamin C. Bogue, over forty years ago.  Whether he invented it or borrowed it, I do not know.  It doesn’t matter.  “Carom” is a term used in billiards and pool.  It means to strike and rebound, or to glance, or to proceed by or as if by caroms(caromed from city to city).  “Traffic carom” perfectly describes the reactions occurring all the time in traffic.

For example:  Picture traffic flowing along an Interstate.  For any one of a million unknown reasons, the driver of car A, in the right lane, slows momentarily.  The driver of car B, following, hits his brakes lightly.  Car C’s driver, following just a bit too closely, brakes harder.  So do D and E behind him.

Sixth in line in the right lane, car F moves left into the middle lane to avoid the slowdown, fitting in just in front of car G, which slows to accommodate it.  That action slows the middle lane, causing H and I to brake, while J moves into the far left lane, triggering slowdowns there.  Now car K changes from the left lane to the middle lane, and car L changes from the middle to the right.  These caroms can continue all the way back to the end of the pack.

In another example, the driver of car M, on a two-lane, city street stops and double parks to let his wife out in front of a restaurant.  Behind him cars N, O, and P stop.  Once the lady has exited, car M’s driver pulls away … apparently.  Cars N, O, and P resume motion, only to stop again when it becomes clear that M has merely pulled up about 45 feet so he can back into a parallel parking place.

Meanwhile, the drivers of cars Q and R, approaching the rear of car P, decide to bypass the whole mess.  They cross the center line onto the wrong side of the street.  This necessitates evasive action by oncoming drivers S and T. They slow and move toward their right, crowding U, a bicyclist in the bike lane who has to slow abruptly.

 The Holy Grail

Each individual reaction, each carom, disrupts traffic flow.  Each disruption increases the potential for a crash, lowers the flow’s efficiency, reduces travel comfort, and saps driving pleasure.  Every one of our actions behind the wheel, all of our laws, our engineering, attitudes, education, etc. must be judged on whether they increase or decrease the traffic carom.  Minimizing the traffic carom is the Holy Grail.

Our personal grail quest requires superb control of motion – of our dynamic position in time and space through awareness, perception, and cooperation.  It demands total involvement.  By striving for the Holy Grail, we will make the world a better place by how we drive through it.