Driving, a Theory

I have a theory about driving, I'm not sure how I feel about it yet.  But bear with me.

In flight training with the military, we do a bit of formation flying.  Not a lot, just enough for an introduction.  Generally about a week's worth of flights for each phase, since different aircraft types and services utilize formation flying in varying degrees.  Fighters and attack aircraft use formations all the time because they're safer and more efficient.  Marine and army transport helicopters fly almost exclusively in formation for the same reasons, plus they generally need to transport large ground forces spread across a large number of aircraft and put them in the same place.  Coast Guard helicopters rarely fly in formation...but they do sometimes.  It's almost unheard of for aircraft to fly in formation outside of the military...it looks cool, but it's practically useless for most forms of commercial aviation.

Therefore, the military prides itself on its formation flying and they've honed it down to an art form over the past century or so.  There are hand signals, radio cues, different positions, techniques for closing distance and separating, and more specific techniques further refined for aircraft and mission type.  The threat of a collision is constant, so the wing aircraft spend about 90% of their time staring at the lead aircraft, maintaining position.  Initially, it's terrifying.  But it quickly becomes exhilarating.  I mean...flying at 200+ knots within twenty feet of another aircraft...it's can be exciting.  Most importantly, though, when aircraft are operating that close together at such high speeds there is constant communication between aircrews.  Not only that, there's extensive briefing ahead of time, and tons of practice if you're doing it without an instructor.  There should be no surprises - or at least, the surprises should be kept to a minimum.  The lead aircraft is basically flying normally, but he needs to think about things farther ahead than he would on his own, since his wingman needs time to adjust.

Well, when you're driving on the road, you're constantly in formation.  We think of driving as "going alone on the open road," but it's rarely, if ever, that.  You always have cars around you, doing different things, going different places.  You need to maintain a loose sort of formation, keeping your distance to avoid tailgating, giving enough distance if you want to pass someone (do a lead change, essentially), you're in different types of vehicle, going different speeds with different destinations.  On top of that, there's no communication between cars.  You'll see red lights go on if someone's braking and all cars are equipped with turn signals, though few people actually use them.  You don't know it's coming, so your reaction time is far slower to a vehicle slowing down in front of you.  You have no idea what that person is thinking, and very often they'll give you no warning about what they're going to do.  When you're behind a car approaching a red light...are they slowing down to stop?  Will they speed up to go through?  I dunno, I think we can make it...oh, dammit, he's stopping, crap...BRAKE!  Asshole, why'd he stop?  It's chaos.  Not that it'd help at this point, but why did no car company ever think to fit a very short range VHF radio into every car?  How would that not make sense?

Driving is inherently stressful.  It's formation flying, something that already requires intense concentration and planning, but without any of the safety precautions or coordination.  It's kind of insane that we force people to do it for even the most mundane of daily chores.