Generally, globally sub-optimal many-agent game-theoretic equilibria can't be escaped by individual agents shooting themselves in the foot. There is a reason why it is an equilibrium in the first place. If there a traffic jam every day that adds 30 min to everyone's drive, you can't solve it by asking some people to voluntarily take the alternate path that adds 1 hour to their drive.

The correct way to move from the sub-optimal equilibrium to a better one is via global action i.e. changing the rules of the game. In the real world that means state level actions as GP talks about.