Game Theory: Chicken

Mmmm....tasty!
But no, I am not talking about it fried or steamed or boiled or grilled. Chicken is in fact a type of game.

I think this game was played in the movie 'Rebel without a cause' (on that note, I have not watched that movie before, but I heard a little about a game of chicken in there, if I am correct).

The example of the game is as follows. Assume 2 cars are on a single lane highway, facing each other. Let us call them car A and B. On a signal, they will drive towards each other. The subgames are:

(i) A swerves and B remains on the road (both live; A is the chicken)
(ii) Both swerve (both live; both are chickens)
(iii) A remains on the road and B swerves (both live; B is the chicken)
(iv) Both remain on the road (both die)

As you can see, the term 'chicken' is used in a derogatory tone here to imply cowardice to the person that swerves. Clearly, to avoid such a humiliating tease, neither would want to swerve. Similarly, both do not want to die (let us assume they are life-loving people and not suicidal). Hence, by elimination, we are left with two Nash equilibria - one of them must swerve. However, whoever swerves is dependent upon who does not swerve. Sometimes I wonder, wouldn't it be nice to come up with a different type of equlibrium where no one dies and no one faces humiliation? If you have any thoughts on this, shoot me a comment.