Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)

by Tom Vanderbilt
Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)
book data
696 ratings, 3.53 average rating, 300 reviews (more data...)
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published
July 29th 2008 by Knopf

binding
Hardcover, 352 pages

isbn
0307264785    (isbn13: 9780307264787)

description
Would you be surprised that road rage can be good for society? Or that most crashes happen on sunny, dry days? That our minds can trick us into thinki...more




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Craig
10/12/08
Craig rated it: 3 of 5 stars

Read in October, 2008
I really wanted to like this book. I have long held a fascination with traffic -- probably because of all hours I've spent stuck in it wondering why it behaves the way it does. I remember having weird traffic discussions with co-workers about traffic like: pretend you left the office to go home at 5:00 and it took you 1 hour to arrive in your driveway. Leaving at 5:30 on the other hand, because of the lighter traffic, you would roll into your driveway in only half an hour. If you and your ho...more
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Michael
04/22/08
Michael rated it: 5 of 5 stars

Vanderbilt gets 5 stars for scaring the hell out of me every time I sit in the driver's seat. TRAFFIC is a compelling, curious read that makes you feel like you shouldn't be sitting in a car, much less driving one. You'll learn that there's such a thing as a "traffic archeologist," find out what was killing all the pedestrians in New York before cars, learn about the illusions that plague you as a driver, and hopefully a few things that will change your driving style. Most importantly,...more
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Ken
08/31/08
Ken rated it: 4 of 5 stars

Read in March, 2009

I live in Los Angeles, and my daily commute subjects me to this city's infamous traffic. So why in the world would I want to read a book about traffic? After all, I live it every day. Well, whether you live in a crowded city or a small town off the interstate, Traffic turns out to be an interesting, worthwhile look at humans and their machines, what happens on the road, and why.


Traffic hooked me right off the bat with its provocative starting point: you're on the freeway in the right hand

...more
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Nicholas Merlin Karpuk
09/30/08
Nicholas Merlin Karpuk rated it: 4 of 5 stars

Read in October, 2008
recommended to Nicholas by: Boing Boing
recommends it for: Sociology Buffs, Aggressive Drivers
You suck at driving.

That's the message I walked away from with this book. And it was a message that made me sit up and pay attention. Non-fiction is something I read sparingly. Something about long spans of data makes my mind drift off, so I'll realize I've read an entire page without actually absorbing anything. The fact that this book hooked me was rather surprising. A big part of it is the fact that Vanderbilt keeps the topics so pertinent to the nature of how we actually drive. I...more
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Jeff
09/03/08
Jeff rated it: 4 of 5 stars

bookshelves: lieberry_books, non-fiction
Read in September, 2008
recommended to Jeff by: Powells bookstore newsletter!
recommends it for: anybody who drives or is driven
This is the perfect example of 4.5 stars for me. I don't want to say it was AMAZING but it was significantly better than "really liked it." The writing's not especially wonderful, but the information is great. It's my kind of topic. It's delivered in a non-preachy tone though the author's "bias" is apparent at times. It's not trying to be too clever (as i usually feel when reading Oliver Sacks or David Sedaris) nor is it afraid of being interesting (as seems to be the case wi...more
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Gwen
11/13/08
Gwen rated it: 4 of 5 stars

bookshelves: non-fiction
Read in December, 2008
I actually listened to the audiobook in the car, which made "reading" this quite ironic. Half of the time, I was in the process of doing exactly what the author was talking about. Overall, I found this book pretty fascinating -- the statistics and logic surrounding safety and danger in the car and on the road seemed so backward (like how freeways and open roadways that appear safe are actually more dangerous than busy city streets with lots of action) -- until they were explained. On...more
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Stewart
10/07/08
Stewart rated it: 2 of 5 stars

Read in October, 2008
I've sort of read this book; in other words, I don't want to finish it and am going to start another one. So you can't consider this a full review. It's a great topic, one I've always wanted to know more about: What is the psychology of traffic? I always thought that traffic is kind of a real time demonstration of the state of a culture -- how cooperative or antagonistic people are in a culture. And I've always thought that California was a great test tube for traffic since so many cultures get ...more
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MRM
08/27/08
MRM rated it: 4 of 5 stars

Read in September, 2008
recommended to MRM by: BPL "What to Read"
Well-written and entertaining look at the psychology of drivers (i.e. most of us). I would have preferred more about urban streets and cyclists (as I am a bike commuter), especially since Vanderbilt lives in my own borough of Brooklyn. But of course Traffic is wide-ranging, as it should be -- always good to learn about what's happening in other countries, particularly China and India.

The most depressing chapters for me were in the first part of the book, when Vanderbilt describes t...more
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Joyce
08/21/08
Joyce rated it: 5 of 5 stars

bookshelves: pyschology
Read in September, 2008
recommends it for: Jim, Julie
A fantastic read -- well written and full of fascinating and thought-provoking relevations about the pyschology of driving, traffic engineering, traffic safety, etc.

His first mission is to convince you to become a 'late merger', even if your spouse cringes as you fly along in the left lane passing all the other chumps obediently taking their turn at a lane drop. 'Late merging' increases the traffic throughtput by as much as 15% because it uses the full volume of the roadway. So ind...more
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Roger Pharr
07/31/08
Roger Pharr rated it: 5 of 5 stars

Read in October, 2008
I've complained in the past about how some full length books could have been accomplished in a single chapter. Some have one big idea that's introduced in the first chapter and then nothing. This is a great example of a book that used every page well. There was so much content that I had to stop reading at every chapter or section of the chapter to process what I had read.

But I may be a little biased toward liking anything about driving. I've always been a fan of the complexity in th...more
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Kevin "El Liso Grande" Sprinkle
01/02/09
Kevin "El Liso Grande" Sprinkle rated it: 4 of 5 stars

Read in January, 2009
Excellent book. Sometimes I was not sure whether it was a tough or easy read. I think it was smart and very cerebral while still being culturally relevant and fun. Some eye opening statistics. Who knew there was this much data on traffic. This is the kind of book that makes you wonder why things still are they are with this much data out there. Def recommend this book but don't think you are going to sit back for a nice, relaxing journey. This is a textbook that is fun.
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Elaine Nelson
12/01/08
Elaine Nelson rated it: 5 of 5 stars

An exploration of the psychology of traffic, mostly in the US, but with some travels abroad (particularly to the UK, the Netherlands, India and China). Amazing stuff. Basically, unless you're a brain surgeon, driving is the most mentally complex thing you will ever do. And of course most of the issues that make traffic so insane are psychological. We're just not designed to go that fast. Also, lots of little nuggets of wisdom to save for future conversations. I hope our governor and state/local ...more
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Steve
06/19/09
Steve rated it: 3 of 5 stars

bookshelves: fun-nonfiction
Read in June, 2009
Really, this is more of a 3.5 stars book.

If you curse at other drivers or think that traffic flows are interesting and not just something to grind your teeth through, this book is for you. On the downside, this book is an encapsulation of all the stories you've probably read before:

1. People overestimate their abilities and underestimate risk;

2. The downsides of signs;

3. Traffic jams "for no reason;"

4. The dubious benefits of safety equipment;

...more
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Christopher Carbone
05/29/09
Christopher Carbone rated it: 3 of 5 stars

Read in January, 2009
recommends it for: people who want to know why the car in front of you won't move!!!
This book is a very logical explanation of the most illogical pain most of us face on a day-to-day basis- traffic. It goes into detail about the very real wasy traffic starts and stops and how we all contribute to the problem. The book also explains why some of the most popular solutions to the traffic problem are actually bound to make the problem worse. The books describes a whole host of myths and interesting issues, such as:

-A regular 4-way intersection is far more dangerous t...more
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Kat
05/17/09
Kat marked it as to-read

bookshelves: to-read
Book Jacket:

Would you be surprised that road rage can be good for
society? Or that most crashes happen on sunny, dry days?
That our minds can trick us into thinking the next lane is
moving faster? Or that you can gauge a nation's driving
behavior by its levels of corruption? These are only a few
of the remarkable dynamics that Tom Vanderbilt explores in
this fascinating tour through the mysteries of the road.

Based on exhaustive research and i...more
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Yune
05/10/09
Yune rated it: 4 of 5 stars

Quite illuminating and engagingly written -- I finished this the day I picked it up from the library, over my intelligent romance and id-appealing military sf novel.

Vanderbilt talks about traffic as we view it today (as negative, such as in traffic jams, instead of the movement of goods as it was in the ancient world) and how it's studied endlessly and yet continually foils engineers because, of course, it's caused by people. People who make good individual decisions, and end up scr...more
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Bookmarks Magazine
02/05/09
Bookmarks Magazine added it

Tom Vanderbilt has an eye for identifying the extraordinary in the mundane. In the well-received Traffic, the autophile's equivalent to Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, the author offers fresh insight into the annoyingand, Vanderbilt makes clear, quite dangerousworld of traffic. "Get only a few pages into Traffic," the Washington Post writes, "and you'll begin to understand something that probably has never crossed your mind, unless you're a traffic engineer, a behavior

...more
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Mike
01/18/09
Mike rated it: 3 of 5 stars

Read in January, 2009
This is a good book to get from the library: informative, interesting (but not intriguing), and a few quirky items. Spoiler alert: the answer to the subtitle's question is that we're irrational. More information that everyone knows but few follow: slow down (or have your municipality reduce the speed limit), buckle up, don't tailgate, don't talk on the cellphone, get rid of signage (that was a pretty cool idea), change intersections to roundabouts without traffic lights, and don't blame truckers...more
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Michael Grogan
04/15/09
Michael Grogan rated it: 5 of 5 stars

Read in April, 2009
I began this book with the hope of determining why my wife is such a horrible driver. Indeed, I get it now. But far from merely analyzing “women drivers,” Vanderbilt shows how we’re all terrible drivers (in fact, men statistically cause the most serious “accidents”). In a nut shell this is a story about how, no matter how well engineered vehicles, roads, safety and signaling systems are, the human element – “idiot drivers,” if you will – reigns supreme. In fact, the more auto-f...more
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Matthew
01/25/09
Matthew rated it: 5 of 5 stars

Read in February, 2009
I freely admit being a transpo geek, so you may not like this book as much as I do.

However, if you spend more than an hour a week in your car, you should definitely give this book a read. I suspect you'll be surprised by what studies say about some of the things you think you know about driving.

More than that, as transportation issues become more important to political discourse and campaigns, I think it will be helpful for all of us to have some background knowledge to m...more
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Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)
Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)
Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What it Says About Us)
Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What it Says About Us)
Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)







quotes from this book

"When a situation feels dangerous to you, it's probably more safe than you know; when a situation feels safe, that is precisely when you should feel on guard." More quotes...


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