Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) (2008) - Plot & Excerpts
I first thought the author, Tom Vanderbilt, was stuck in everyday traffic and bored. He then began to write this book to pass the time away. He probably used a tape recorder, so he could continue to drive at 5 mph. As I read further, I realized how much research he did for the book. The ultimate conclusion I walked away with, after completing this book, is that there is little we can do to improve the safety of the roads. We make roads safer by widening the lanes, removing hazards and straightening the roads; and the people drive faster. This would increase the number of deaths on the improved road. The road improvement might lower the number of accidents, but make the accidents more hazardous by the increased speed. There seems nothing can be done about the driver, who drives when he is too tired, or intoxicated. Reading this book has made me more aware of the hazards we ignore while driving. I hope this book has improved my driving ability. Fascinating. Delves into the psychology of why people drive the way they do, cultural differences in driving behavior, the dehumanizing effect of high speeds (and the humanizing effect of lower ones). This is mostly an encyclopedic "Hey, did you know X correlates strongly with Y? Isn't that neat?" survey of traffic behavior, and not particularly prescriptive--because you can't change human nature. Sorta depressing to realize that we are pretty much doomed to be shitty drivers with high fatality rates until the robots take over (or we move to Japan or Scandinavia).(Note to self: reconsider desire to move to rural Montana; Sweden instead?)
What do You think about Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) (2008)?
Very interesting, but heavy and dry. It took me a while to get through it, though I'm glad I did!
—shocbomb
Two-thirds into this book, I found out I'm being sued by someone that rear-ended me.
—lolliepop
