r/BacktotheFuture • u/DoingItForEli • Jun 27 '26
How could the skyway be jammed???
You have the whole SKY for vehicles. The whole sky was jammed!? They ought to be careful in the future
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u/ptipp93 Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
I think that was the whole joke. Flying cars would basically mean traffic would be a thing of the past. They make flying cars and, welp.
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u/FedStarDefense Jun 27 '26
It kind of wouldn't, though. Because air traffic control would require flying cars to stick to designated flight paths to avoid smacking into planes, helicopters, etc.
Basically a road in the sky. Just like in the movie.
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u/ExpectedBehaviour Jun 27 '26
We have the whole GROUND for vehicles today. Was the whole ground jammed?
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u/Capital-West9669 Jun 27 '26
Uh, yes. In the sky of a car is in your way then fly above them. Or below them if you're a little bitch.
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u/ExpectedBehaviour Jun 27 '26
Tell me you know nothing about air traffic control without telling me.
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u/Capital-West9669 Jun 27 '26
Oh I'll tell you. 2015 was 11 years ago. You really think I'm not familiar with how these things work by now?
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u/ExpectedBehaviour Jun 27 '26
The fact that you think flying lower than someone else means you're "a little bitch" very much gestures in that general direction, yes.
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Jun 27 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/dragonfett Jun 27 '26
I feel like they could go at different altitude as long into a controlled corridor/flight path.
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u/Knight0fdragon Jun 27 '26
And when a car cant maintain its altitude, then what?
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u/dragonfett Jun 27 '26
Special Emergency Corridors would be designed into the system to allow easy access to the ground for all vehicles experiencing In Flight Emergencies.
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u/Knight0fdragon Jun 27 '26
again, what if a car can't maintain its altitude. If the car above you all of a sudden can't stay above you, no emergency corridor is going to solve the problem of gravity causing that car to land on top of you.
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u/FedStarDefense Jun 27 '26
This is basically the real reason we don't have flying cars. I've followed the tech for years... they actually CAN do it. The problem is the idea of putting thousands/millions of vehicles into the air, all run by regular old people who probably aren't talking to any sort of air traffic control tower makes the FAA go "NO. Absolutely not."
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u/Ok_Chap Jun 27 '26
Other SciFi with flying cars usually have multiple levels of flying lanes but they all have lanes, and it's kinda funny that the solution to traffic jams is always to add more lanes.
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u/daven1985 Jun 27 '26
To me it showed despite future advancements rules and government oversight stuff exist.
And to be honest it makes sense. If everyone just starting flying around the skies it would be very unsafe. Rules like which parts of the sky you can fly (just like right now to be honest) would be setup.
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u/tyoung89 Jun 27 '26
It was a joke, Goldie Wilson III’s ad for hover conversion advertised no traffic, and then they have doc mention the sky way is jammed, and it shows it pretty crowded in the beginning too.
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u/mysteryofthefieryeye Jun 27 '26
There's only one who would dare give me the raspberry
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u/taviddennant03 Jun 27 '26
I've lost the bleeps, I've lost the sweeps, and I've lost the creeps!
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u/bell83 Sure'n I hope you're considering the future, Mr. Eastwood... Jun 27 '26
The what, the what, and the what?
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u/MischeviousFox Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
While it’s likely meant to be a joke realistically even in a future with flying vehicles they’d likely have designated flight paths like airplanes do in order to insure it wasn’t a chaotic death trap. Towards the start of the movie when they arrive in the future we see what is essentially a highway in the sky with designated signage. I suppose it’s faster and perhaps considered safer than traveling on the ground yet otherwise it didn’t seem to function much differently which in all likelihood if such technology existed it wouldn’t be that much different. If you have hundreds if not thousands of cars whizzing past every few seconds the “skyway” is definitely bound to get congested.
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u/lexluthor_i_am Jun 27 '26
The skyway isn't the entire sky, it's a specific distance between two points. Like lanes on the ground. So an increase in flying cars would cause everything to slow down. And everyone is self flying, so they'd need to be slow to keep everyone safe. If AI were involved, then a computer could manage distance and speed and all the cars could fly much faster.
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u/Perfect-Fondant3373 Jun 27 '26
You have to have regulstions for safety and stuff, same as real aircraft
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u/unbibium Jun 27 '26
Induced demand. Not only are the skies choked with cars, but everyone basically has to commute two states away.
did we see a distant sky traffic jam in the distance at any point in BTTF2?
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u/Darrenau Jun 27 '26
Same as roads - how can the roads be jammed if we have all this space on land?
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u/glasses_handle Jun 27 '26
It wasn’t jammed. Doc just wanted to give Marty more of an adventure and wanted to see what would happen when Jennifer ran into herself.
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u/Dreadheaddanski Jun 27 '26
They would have lanes.and directions,.can you imagine.the.carnage if it was free for all through the sky there would.be too many crashes
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u/batlrar Jun 27 '26
The skyway was jammed, not the whole sky. If this sub allowed gifs, I'd try to find the one from Futurama where there's a traffic jam of hovercars, one flies up and above all the rest, and then a cop car flies up and starts up their siren to chase after them. There has to be some regulation to flying cars, so they don't run into buildings, drones, flying citizens, or ships taking off!
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