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^Reminds me of a story I was trying to write. It was awful and juvenile and I abandoned it, but one idea I touched in it was a convoy - a train really - of connected vehicles. The lead gets crap mileage but all the rest did great, and on average all were pretty good.
With autonomous vehicle control, high precision reactive cruise control and even intervehicle communication, I can see a system of petition-and-permission convoy creating software, vehicles compare each other's destinations and link up - not physically like in my story, lo these many years ago - to form mutually beneficial teams. Such convoys would default to the middle lane if one were available, and automatically open gaps in themselves when approaching exits and entrances if no middle lane was available.
Close up the gap enough and the lead car gets a benefit too. I wouldn't trust a human with this kind of tailgating, I'm talking about a following distance of maybe three feet or less - close enough the two vehicles are aerodynamically coupled.
Sorry, this has wandered away from the original topic. I'll stop here.
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Lead or follow. Either is fine.
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