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

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 lane. A sign indicates that the lane is ending and you should merge left. Do you merge at the first safe opportunity and get mad at the drivers who keep zooming past on the right until the last possible merge point? Or are you one of the drivers who waits until that endpoint, where you have to stop and wait for your turn to merge? Tom Vanderbilt used to be an early merger, but then he changed his ways. Once you read the facts behind his decision, maybe you'll change your ways too.

Vanderbilt explores this and other conventional wisdom of the road. He also looks at traffic from an engineering point of view. For instance, how much good do all those speed limit, caution and warning signs actually do? What would happen in a busy, urban environment if we just took those signs away and let people figure things out for themselves? (It's been tried and the results surprised me.) Have we collectively done the right thing by widening our roads, adding bike lanes, crosswalks and protected turn arrows?

By the time I reached the end of this book, I had plenty of food for thought. It's quite possible that all the traffic planning and road engineering in our major cities has been misguided in some major ways, resulting in the disruption of neighborhoods and increased danger to driver and pedestrian alike. How do we make traffic flow more quickly on our crowded roads – or is "faster" the wrong goal in the first place?

Although Traffic may leave the reader with more questions than answers, fascinating studies and tidbits are scattered throughout the book, and Vanderbilt writes in an easygoing, humorous style. If he occasionally dwells too long on a particular point (I found some of his writing about safety a little plodding), he can be forgiven this minor sin in a book otherwise packed with information that speaks to our everyday lives.

One final note: although it was not the author's intent, reading Traffic actually had an impact on the way I drive. I had become an angry driver, and after reading this book, I find myself much more philosophical behind the wheel, and I've cut way back on the pointless aggression. I will try and make that a lasting change.

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;

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;

5. Which sex really are less-safe drivers;

6. The downsides of talking on your cell phone ('hands-free' doesn't help)

7. Why roundabouts are better

... so you might not learn much new from it. (But you probably will.)

My most interesting (and galling) response to the book is how often I find myself seeing and/or practicing the cognitive mistakes outlined in the book (for example: the longer you wait for an opening in traffic, the less safe your left turn becomes... oops.)

This isn't a 5-star book because I can't say -- even with its safety advice -- that it changed my life. It's not a 4-star book because I found that it doesn't flow very well together; each chapter feels more like an individual (interesting) magazine article and they've all been stitched together with only the slightest common thesis of "traffic." It's not bad by any stretch, it just doesn't feel like a coherent whole -- more of a smorgasbord of interesting, terrifying, and fascinating tidbits about how we drive.

But it's great fun.

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 annoying���and, Vanderbilt makes clear, quite dangerous���world 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

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 annoying���and, Vanderbilt makes clear, quite dangerous���world 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 behavioral psychologist or a law-enforcement officer." An insider's look at how car culture is shaped by human nature, even if the Los Angeles Times reviewer criticized Vanderbilt's omission of our collective car fetish, Traffic is an engaging read for every driver���from the 10-and-2 to the habitual gawker.

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.