Home › Forums › Open Discussion › For everyone interested in traffic (safety, congestion, law enforcement)
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July 28, 2009 at 6:29 pm #591708
JulieMemberThe number of posts about red light cameras, speeding, pedestrian safety, bicycles, etc. here makes me think many of you might like this book:
You might think a book about traffic would just be a way to prolong the torture after a rough commute, but I recommend Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) by Tom Vanderbilt as surprisingly diverting reading.
Vanderbilt explores how humans behave in traffic and cope with the road, which “more than simply a system of regulations and designs, is a place where many millions of us, with only loose parameters for how to behave, are thrown together daily in a kind of massive petri dish in which all kinds of uncharted, little-understood dynamics are at work.”
“…we like to think of traffic as an abstraction, a grouping of things rather than a collection of individuals. We talk about “beating the traffic” or “getting stuck in traffic,” but we never talk—in polite company, at least—about “beating people” or “getting stuck in people.”
Driving necessarily limits our normally sophisticated and subtle communication to a few simple signals, and renders us mute. Our brains’ need to construct meaning from interactions, and maintain our self-esteem, may cause us to construct “moral dramas” in which we are the wronged victims.
“In traffic, we struggle to stay human.”
Along the way, he investigates safety, risk, perception, judgment, congestion, cultural differences, corruption, and cannibalism in crickets.
How good a judge are you of your own driving? “I guarantee you that you’ve got driving habits you’re not even aware of that are an accident waiting to happen.” This is from the CEO of a company called DriveCam that has recorded thousands of hours of video simultaneously of drivers and the road in front, capturing near misses and crashes. (You can see some of these at http://www.drivecam.com/Fleet/Video_Clips.aspx. They’ll scare you, but you’re likely to think, “But I’d never do that!)
One change I intend to make after reading this book is to try to use the word “crash” rather than “accident”.
Vanderbilt investigates why we resist efforts to improve road safety, but accept considerable interference to protect against terrorism, for example, when U.S. road deaths account for more than 40,000 deaths each year, and terrorism has killed fewer than 5000 in the U.S. in the last 50 years.
Don’t be daunted by the thickness of the book; a goodly chunk of it is the extensive references, which are separated from the text in the back. You can follow up the research, but it doesn’t interfere with the reading.
I recommend this lively book for drivers, bicyclists, and pedestrians.
July 28, 2009 at 6:34 pm #673070
JulieMemberI meant to add it’s available at SPL both in print and as an eAudio book.
July 29, 2009 at 2:42 am #673071
EmmyJaneParticipantSounds interesting, thanks for the suggestion.
July 29, 2009 at 2:52 am #673072
datamuseParticipantI just bought this for my university’s library. Looking forward to reading it.
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