Traffic

Nov 20, 2008 Craig rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: general-nonfiction, psychology-and-sociology

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 housem...more 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 housemate left at these times is it possible that you'd arrive at home at the same instant, despite having left work a half hour apart. Yes, a clinically strange thing to talk about on coffee break but, like I said, traffic fascinates me.

When I saw this book, and especially when I started to read it, I thought I was in Heaven. A book that spoke to this bizarre side of me that I never knew was shared by anyone else. As I made my way through the book a lot of that hope and promise vanished however.

Aside from the fact that about a third of the book is taken up with acknowledgments and references (seriously!) I never really felt that it used all that research all that effectively. The conclusions that were drawn never really clicked with me. For example, the author goes on at length about why it's a good idea to be a "late merger" on the highway when there's an upcoming lane drop. He prattles on about late mergers just being economical about the road -- using as much as there is instead of choking up another lane by merging early. I never really understood that and the argument fell short of being convincing. Another example was that the courtesy wave -- letting someone pass, turn ahead of you, or merge into the lane -- was some evolutionary carryover from caveman days that has roots in being nice to people for reasons of not wanting to be wonked over the head with a club. In other words, it's an instinct that bears no relevance in today's world but is merely an echo of a time and has no bearing on present situations like, you know, just being nice or something. These are merely two examples in pretty long line of unconvincing and poorly supported conclusions.

By the end my worst fears about the book were realized when I had to admit that it was really not much more than an extended magazine article. Like the immortal Ambrose Bierce said: "The covers of this book are too far apart".(less)

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May 02, 2008 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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, you'll le...more

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Aug 31, 2009 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Tom Vanderbilt has written an original, enlightening, and--considering the current political and financial maelstrom around automakers--a timely study of human driving characteristics and the universal factors influencing vehicle operation. The book is 286 pages with a remarkable addition of 100 pages of notes. There isn't a page in the book without a reference, a majority coming from national government studies and automobile industry safety reports. Overall, the content is highly-researched, i...more Tom Vanderbilt has written an original, enlightening, and--considering the current political and financial maelstrom around automakers--a timely study of human driving characteristics and the universal factors influencing vehicle operation. The book is 286 pages with a remarkable addition of 100 pages of notes. There isn't a page in the book without a reference, a majority coming from national government studies and automobile industry safety reports. Overall, the content is highly-researched, international, and leaves the reader feeling he just read a book sui generis on why we drive the way we do.

I drive a light, compact, 2-door commuter car and use it primarily on large interstates. I know people who will not ride in my car for fear of being in a crash. They view my car as a 'tin can of death,' as if its size automatically portends substandard driver skills and inferior automobile performance. Vanderbilt's book tears apart, argument by argument, prejudice by prejudice, these kinds of unfounded social myths. Physics can tell you that my compact car will crumple in an accident, but by sheer rate, compact cars are less likely to be in accidents, and much less likely to result in fatalities! The factors are too numerous to list here, but, in highlight, Vanderbilt's analysis explores reasons of culture, physics, anthropology, urban planning, psychology, civil & mechanical engineering, sociology, transportation policy, government corruption, human nature, optics, and much, much more. Each has a unique story to tell. And each, ironically, goes against the prevailing conventions in their societies.

The reader (like I did) will learn that they nurture incorrect views of vehicle operation. Despite a preponderance of evidence around the world and from history, there are still mysteries of traffic behavior. Most interesting are sections on the trouble with traffic signs, the psychology of commuting, and the fatal flaws of traffic engineering. Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do will undoubtedly be the go-to book for journal and paper articles about traffic in the near-term.

4 stars for being comprehensive, easy to read, and informative on a topic that invisibly touches every person's life, daily. Could have had 5 stars, but there was so much information within each chapter that the author should have had a summary page highlighting the main points. I fear that, despite being such a good book, I will forget many conclusions since they weren't underscored time and again throughout the book.(less)

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Mar 09, 2009 Ken rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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.

...more

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.

(less)

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Sep 12, 2008 MRM rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 the various una...more 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 the various unavoidable ways that people engage in self-defeating behavior on the road. "Vehicles are moving at velocities for which we hvae no evolutionary training -- for most of the life of the species we did not try to make interpersonal decisions at speed." (p. 37) The distraction, the cellphones, the falling asleep at the wheel...And we're not getting any better. And every close call reinforces our idea that we're a good driver because we avoided getting in an accident.

Speaking of which, I wanted to cheer Vanderbilt in the passage about the word "accident" (which he points out that the British Medical Journal stopped using seven years ago because it implies, falsely, that such an incident is both unpredictable and unpreventable). "The word accident[...:]has been sent skittering down a slippery slope, to the point where it seems to provide protective cover for the worst and most negligent driving behaviors. This in turn suggests that so much of the everyday carnage on the road is mysteriously out of our hands and can be stopped or lessened only by adding more air bags (pedestrians, unfortunately, lack this safety feature)." (p. 66)

Similarly, the most inspiring chapter for me was "When Dangerous Roads Are Safer," which discusses the ways that traditional traffic-calming measures (speed bumps, lots of signs, etc.) aren't the best ways to improve driver behavior and reduce crashes. I made a list of the people and concepts I want to research further -- Joost Vahl, Hans Monderman, the Shared Space movement...I loved how anarchism (not "anarchy" as it's misused, as a synonym for chaos) reigned in the Laweiplein crossing in Drachten, the Netherlands, after traffic engineer Hans Monderman redesigned it without signs or lights. "The responsibility for getting through the intersection was now up to the users, and they responded by communicating among themselves. The result was that the system was safer, even though the majority of users[...:]felt that the system was more dangerous!" (p. 200)(less)

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Oct 29, 2008 Nicholas Karpuk rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Sociology Buffs, Aggressive Drivers

Recommended to Nicholas by: Boing Boing

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. It's an entir...more

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Sep 26, 2008 Jeff rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: anybody who drives or is driven

Recommended to Jeff by: Powells bookstore newsletter!

Shelves: lieberry_books, non-fiction

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 with most Important Bi...more 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 with most Important Biographies i've tried to read).

Not many people THINK deeply about traffic. We have strong feelings about it and it can ruin your day, but considering it in the abstract or viewing it as an index of culture (as telling as one's language or religion) probably doesn't even occur to most of us as something worth trying. This book covers the topic incredibly thoroughly. Sometimes redundant, but i suspect that's because the author wasn't so arrogant as to expect every reader to start on p.1 and plow through to the last page of the index without stopping.

The first chapter or two had me thinking it should be mandatory reading for student drivers. The majority of the book, though, is really about sociology and psychology, so it's not worthwhile to students. The final chapters and the epilogue return to appropriate topics. Of course, i don't expect many young teens would dig this stuff much: non-fiction books ain't typical American Cool.

This should make it onto the syllabi of undergrad courses across the country. I hope the students appreciate it. And i really hope the blurb in Entertainment Weekly about it helps get a few thousand more people to read the damned thing (rather than just buying it, a la Oprah's magic).

Extensive notes (i didn't read them; normally would, but it's a 14-day loaner from the lieberry) in the backmatter are probably very useful and informative. I didn't need the index, but i love me a non-fiction book with a good index: indispensable for somebody who needs to study it.

Finally, i'd like to thank the smarties at Powell's Bookstore in Portland, OR, for their excellent newsletter and its oft-terrific recommendations. I have not given them credit before now, but they consistently have good ideas for what to read next.(less)

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Dec 30, 2008 Gwen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

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. One of the mos...more

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Sep 12, 2008 Joyce rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Jim, Julie

Shelves: pyschology

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 indulge your Type...more 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 indulge your Type A self!

My favorite chapter talks about traffic safety and some of the surprising discoveries about traffic signage. If you want to get drivers' attention, you're better off putting up an inscrutable sculpture than an instructive sign: drivers see so much roadside instruction, they tune it out. In the Netherlands (of course) they've experimented with traffic-sign free zones -- and learned that without signs, drivers focus more on their actual surroundings and safety increases.

A Dutch traffic engineer is also responsible for pioneering 'traffic calming' not through speed bumps, but by putting heavy traffic and pedestrians closer together. It has to do with putting drivers back in the 'village'; promoting eye contact and softening the barrier between auto and human. This is probably where NYC got the idea of putting little pedestrian oases in the middle of Broadway.

In Los Angeles, code H25-As -- "traffic hazard animal" -- peak on July 5, presumeably because all the dogs freaked out by the previous night's fireworks are hitting the freeway.

This is psychology, engineering, sociology (an interesting chapter on how corruption affects traffic) wrapped up in an enjoyable read, with chapter headings like "Why You Shouldn't Drive with a Beer-Drinking Divorced Doctor Named Fred on Super Bowl Sunday in a Pickup Truck in Rural Montana". Should be required reading for all new drivers and their parents.

My only regret is that it's rather long and I didn't quite finish it before I had to return to the library.(less)

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Oct 01, 2008 Roger Pharr rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 the subject, m...more

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Jan 10, 2009 Kevin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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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Nov 15, 2010 Elaine Nelson rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, psychology, politics, urban-studies, bicycling, history, legal, favorites

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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Feb 01, 2013 Jeff Kelleher rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Your are rolling along in the left lane when "Lane Closed Ahead" appears. Do you merge early or late? The socially-optimal strategy is to merge late, at or near the actual end of the lane. By doing so, you exploit now-scarce lane space that otherwise might be under-used. Everyone benefits (notwithstanding the self-righteous irritation of the drivers you pass). The same doesn't apply to the line at an offramp, though. Late cutters-in are not conserving lane space, but merely cheating.

Scores of si...more Your are rolling along in the left lane when "Lane Closed Ahead" appears. Do you merge early or late? The socially-optimal strategy is to merge late, at or near the actual end of the lane. By doing so, you exploit now-scarce lane space that otherwise might be under-used. Everyone benefits (notwithstanding the self-righteous irritation of the drivers you pass). The same doesn't apply to the line at an offramp, though. Late cutters-in are not conserving lane space, but merely cheating.

Scores of similarly-intriguing insights are scattered throughout this book. The title and cover make it seem like whimsy. It is actually serious and rather dense, filled with engineering, physics, psychology, statistics, and sociology.

More insights. SUV drivers are more dangerous than sedan drivers. Not, as one might think, because they are arrogant yuppies, but because the high perch induces under-estimation of speed, and larger size induces casual driving habits. Men have fewer crashes than women per mile driven, but more fatalities (yes, it is largely testosterone and alcohol). Having a male passenger makes men even more dangerous, but a female passenger calms them. New cars crash at a higher rate than older cars. Pickup truck drivers are the most dangerous of all. Read the book to learn why.

If there is an overarching lesson from this study, it is the near-futility of social regulation. Traffic is a microcosm of society--vast, teeming, and intractable. Most measures to reduce congestion or improve safety cause a counter-reaction that largely defeats the measure.

Seat belts, airbags, rollover protection, and ABS brakes simply allow drivers to press the limits of the now-wider envelope. Our consciousness gets numb to warning signs ("Falling Rocks"). There ARE a lot fewer fatalities than in the past, but more crashes and worse congestion. More roads, more lanes, more signals, more sensors, produce diminishing returns.

It turns out that both safety and flow are best served by LESS, not more, regulation. The model is an intersection in the middle of the Dutch town of Drachten where once two main streets intersected, governed by traffic lights. Twenty thousand cars a day pass through, plus countless bikes and pedestrians. An innovative traffic engineer named Hans Monderman eliminated all signals and signs and crosswalks and zebra poles, and replaced them with a town square dominated by sidewalks and fountains, with a roundabout in the middle. No one stops, everyone gives way voluntarily. Time to cross the intersection has been cut by 40%, accidents by 90%. We should take heed.

RE: editing. The writing style is plain enough, but a skilled editor could have cut the length by a third without loss. Worse, there are 100 pages of textual footnotes. This is the worst kind of editorial laziness. I wish all the style manuals would say, "NO TEXTUAL FOOTNOTES, EVER. Text belongs in the main body, or it doesn't belong. Period." (less)

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Jun 05, 2010 Dustin Tatman rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone that drives

Recommended to Dustin by: Adam Carolla

Shelves: 2009, non-fiction, psychology, science

I loved the multidisciplinary approach. It jumps around from stuff that's going on inside our brains, to the differences between various commuting cultures, to the nuts and bolts of civil engineering. It confirmed a lot of my suspicions about traffic while teaching me new stuff at the same time.

I'm usually pretty conservative with my ratings, but I had to give it the 5th star because of its applicability. It's something that most of us do every day, but there aren't many books on the subject.

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Mar 17, 2013 Nestor Rychtyckyj rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is one of those cool little books that opens up a whole world of new discoveries about what looks like a pretty boring and well-understood subject - traffic. Tom Vanderbilt does an excellent job of opening up the world of traffic to us and manages to tie in all sorts of things from human cognition to cultural differences to how sociery has evolved around our driving habits. The statistic of driving and traffic that the government puts out can be numbing, but this book manages to make sense...more

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Dec 04, 2012 Alejandro Teruel rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: psicología, sociales, tecnologia

Interesante y valioso esfuerzo por presentar los trabajos que se han venido haciendo sobre la psicología del manejo de automóviles, los embotellamientos y de los riesgos asociados. En menor grado también cita, en forma sobresimplificada, algunos trabajos en el área de la ingeniería del tráfico.

Concuerdo con muchos de los otros reseñadores de Goodreads: el libro esta lleno de detalles, hechos y pseudo-hechos ("factoids") interesantes, pero a la larga el libro resulta curiosamente cansón. Creo que...more

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Oct 19, 2012 Aaron Arnold rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2012, science

Traffic as a phenomenon is full of irritating paradoxes. Driving faster can mean everyone drives slower. Building roads to relieve congestion creates even more congestion. Redesigning roads to make them safer can cause more accidents. Putting up more warning signs means fewer of them get read. Trying to keep pedestrians protected from cars makes them less safe. Tailgating the car in front of you in a traffic jam does nothing to let you escape it. Traffic the book is an excellent in-depth study o...more Traffic as a phenomenon is full of irritating paradoxes. Driving faster can mean everyone drives slower. Building roads to relieve congestion creates even more congestion. Redesigning roads to make them safer can cause more accidents. Putting up more warning signs means fewer of them get read. Trying to keep pedestrians protected from cars makes them less safe. Tailgating the car in front of you in a traffic jam does nothing to let you escape it. Traffic the book is an excellent in-depth study on driving and its effects on society that manages to both confirm a lot of my own driving prejudices and offer a lot of good insights into traffic congestion and a host of other related subjects. Vanderbilt talks about the history of traffic jams going back to the Romans and how modern technology is trying to stay one step ahead of the monster jams that modern technology helps create in the first place. Very readable and full of fun info. Quick takeaways, some of which should be obvious yet somehow aren't for a lot of people:
- Don't tailgate, it's really unsafe and often causes people to actually slow down
- Driving and texting/eating/anything in the car makes you way more likely to get into a wreck
- In a traffic jam, drive a slow but consistent speed instead of stopping and going; you won't get out of the jam any more quickly but you will both save on gas and help out the people behind you
- Late merging is the way to go, as it maximizes the use of space; don't get pissed off at people who zoom ahead of you, you didn't "own" a place in line
- Support toll roads/congestion pricing/higher street parking fees; recognizing that the precious resources of road and parking space aren't free will help everyone in the long run even if it hurts your wallet up front
- Stop thinking of roads as car transport devices only, there are lots of other types of transportation like bikes and pedestrians that have just as much of a right to be there as cars
- Suburban sprawl is ruining cities and in very real ways making us poorer as a nation, encourage any and every policy to spur density and alternatives to driving you see

If you're like me, you hate driving and try to do as little of it as possible, yet you still find the subject very interesting. Vanderbilt goes through a great tour of the many ways in which the rise of mega-commuting has warped our culture (e.g. we spend so much time in our cars that radio stations time their broadcasts to give you "driveway moments" that get you to stay in your car even after your trip has ended to hear the end of the segment) and the superhuman efforts of traffic engineers to shave even seconds off our journeys. Highly recommended.(less)

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Aug 11, 2012 Jan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A fun book, in the vein of Malcolm Gladwell hits like "The Tipping Point" and "Outliers." In trying to paint a portrait of traffic throughout our society, Tom Vanderbilt goes for breadth rather than depth, which has its pluses and minuses.
Instead of anchoring to one or two sweeping conclusions (like Gladwell) and pressing into their service some interesting anecdotes, Vanderbilt goes into a dizzying array of factoids and stories about traffic without necessary trying to tie them all together. I...more

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Jun 16, 2012 Stephen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Take a brain adapted to move a bit over a hundred pounds of flesh at speeds under 20 miles per hour, and have it instead try to move several tons of metal through an environment which didn’t exist a hundred years ago, at speeds hitherto unimaginable. What happens? Well, we’ve only had a few decades to see, but so far the introduction of cars as the predominant form of transport has produced interesting results, like congestion and road rage. In Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do, Tom Vanderbilt...more Take a brain adapted to move a bit over a hundred pounds of flesh at speeds under 20 miles per hour, and have it instead try to move several tons of metal through an environment which didn’t exist a hundred years ago, at speeds hitherto unimaginable. What happens? Well, we’ve only had a few decades to see, but so far the introduction of cars as the predominant form of transport has produced interesting results, like congestion and road rage. In Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do, Tom Vanderbilt examines the psychology of driving, and learns some lessons about being human on the way.

Traffic is a dense book, more a survey than a piece with a specific point to make. There are nine chapters, each with a general theme -- "How Traffic Messes With Our Heads", "Why You're Not as Good a Driver As You Think You Are" -- and content spans the gamut from trivial to potent. Driving is such an expressly different experience than our brains evolved to take in that Vanderbilt believes we find it difficult to be 'human' behind the wheel. Although driving seems like simply an act of moving around, we're detached from the experience and from each other; drivers can't communicate with one another beyond some simplistic forms of expression (the horn and the finger). It's also a tremendously complicated procedure: road systems are complex physical objects even without factoring in interacting with hundreds of other drivers, and we are expected to be able to respond to more stimuli per minute than nature would have ever expected to throw our way. On the potent side, this work could help concerned citizens create more sensible transit policies: there's an entire chapter on how the expansion of roads simply leads to the expansion of congestion. Traffic always swells to match the volume of roads available, so building more roads will only create more congestion. Creating a safer system can happen by making it appear more dangerous, by removing traffic lights, signs, and even road striping. Humans seem to operate with a particular risk threshold, and when the environment becomes "safer" (thanks to lights, stripes, and so on), we drive more recklessly. This is why roundabouts are safer than four-way cross intersections regulated by traffic lights; when people are forced to take responsibility for themselves and use intelligence to navigate their environment, they pay more attention and accidents fall dramatically. Counter-intuitive revelations abound in Traffic: bikers may be better off not wearing helmets, because cars take less care when passing a helmeted biker. Often we can arrive at a destination more quickly by slowing down and interrupting globs of congestion.

All told, an interesting book. While it may suffer from the generalized subject, there are some gems in here for those interested in the subject.

Related:
Asphalt Nation, Jane Holtz Kay(less)

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May 05, 2012 Sara rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction

Are you one of those people who is infuriated by stupid drivers? Do you feel a surge of road rage when drivers zoom past and then try to jump into the merging lane just before the other lane closes? Does it seem like traffic is worse now than ever before? Or are you a passenger in the car of a driver who refuses to acknowledge that he should really share the road with others? “Traffic” is a highly readable look at the culture of driving: subtitled “Why we drive the way we do (and what it says ab...more

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Feb 17, 2012 Jmcclish rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Love these kinds of books. Great conversation starters. Like how, you ask?

Women account for the most traffic congestion because of "trip chaining"? Apparently, even if they have a full-time job, they still do the majority of the household errands and taxi driving. According to the book, men overwhelmingly drive as if they do not even have a family, i.e. just to work and back. The 90s saw an uptick in middle-aged male trip chaining...it's called the "Starbucks effect." No joke!

Cyclists suffer few...more

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Jan 28, 2012 Brooks rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Vanderbilt, Tom, Traffic, Why we drive the way we do, Knopf, New York, 2008
This book discusses some of the fallacies, research, and physiology of driving and road planning. Some of the ideas:
- Much of the problem with road design is not the concrete or the cars – it is the people
- Merging – Late merger is more effective for throughput. Use both lanes and then zipper merge. Helps the whole system and you individually. Even if it seems unfair.
- Differential speed limits – i.e. h trucks are given a...more

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Nov 28, 2011 Nathaniel rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I had high hopes for this book after it sat unpurchased on my Amazon wishlist for three years...and once I finally got around to buying it, boy was I disappointed. To start with, Vanderbilt is the worst kind of modern nonfiction writer: the know-nothing cherrypicker who did some research on the internet and thinks he's an expert now, despite a total lack of objectivity which comes through on every page of his text. Vanderbilt smugly grabs research - any research - to justify his own pre-existing...more I had high hopes for this book after it sat unpurchased on my Amazon wishlist for three years...and once I finally got around to buying it, boy was I disappointed. To start with, Vanderbilt is the worst kind of modern nonfiction writer: the know-nothing cherrypicker who did some research on the internet and thinks he's an expert now, despite a total lack of objectivity which comes through on every page of his text. Vanderbilt smugly grabs research - any research - to justify his own pre-existing view of how things are, only bothering to evaluate the studies he's read that HE doesn't personally agree with. Most of the data in this book is just that: data, and while some of the data is interesting, the key to writing a book like this is not just data but what you do with it. Vanderbilt clearly has no background in interpreting data (as so few people who write these kinds of books actually do nowadays - I blame America), so to him, a study from New Zealand is as valid as a study from New Jersey, despite vastly different methodologies, confidence intervals, and populations, and the two can be freely combined if it justifies a conclusion that HE has already drawn. For anyone who has actually taken a class in research methods, it's as lazy as it is amateurish.

Worse, however, is Vanderbilt's habit of pushing his own assumptions upon the reader in a way that is simply irritating. The more than occasional "you have done this while driving" or "you were/weren't thinking that while driving" is almost comically presumptuous and moves him from merely being a hack to being an offensive one - the best one, for me, was "you have encountered a traffic light that was stuck on red". Well, um, no, actually. I've been driving for 10 years, have lived in six states in three time zones, including three major metropolitan areas and two minor ones. I've driven in 30 other states in addition to those and stopped at many, MANY traffic lights. None was EVER stuck on red. This is what makes Vanderbilt's book so disappointing - his failure to take the vastly, vastly different regional experiences of drivers into consideration as anything other than a justification for his own stereotyped New York worldview.

Someday someone will write a great book about traffic in the United States that takes regional identity into consideration. Unfortunately, this is not it. (less)

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Sep 27, 2011 Melissa rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I only gave this three stars, but please don't misunderstand. There's nothing wrong with the book, it's just that, personally, I couldn't help but wonder every so often why I was reading this book about something that is, for better or for worse, pretty banal. However, I really am glad I read it, because I do believe that reading it will make anyone into a safer driver, bicyclist, and pedestrian. I'm usually a bicyclist myself, and I think this book helped me get a better feeling for how drivers...more

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May 18, 2011 Noah Brod rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science

The interesting:
* The white dotted divider lines on freeway lanes are 10-15 feet in length. They look shorter because of an optical illusion caused by the speed of the car.
* We judge speed by the rate at which objects appear to increase in size and the distance at which we can make judgements about speed becomes shorter and shorter as speeds increase.
* The more dangerous a road *feels* the more safe it is in almost every instance.
* "risk homeostasis" - after making any aspect of driving safer, d...more The interesting:
* The white dotted divider lines on freeway lanes are 10-15 feet in length. They look shorter because of an optical illusion caused by the speed of the car.
* We judge speed by the rate at which objects appear to increase in size and the distance at which we can make judgements about speed becomes shorter and shorter as speeds increase.
* The more dangerous a road *feels* the more safe it is in almost every instance.
* "risk homeostasis" - after making any aspect of driving safer, drivers tend to respond by driving in a more dangerous fashion. After a safety device is implemented by car manufacturers or road builders accidents dip down and then slowly rise back to their previous levels.
* making eye contact with cross traffic is more likely to get you hit by a car as a pedestrian.
* purposely driving at slow speeds in stop/go traffic will eliminate the stop/go effect for the entire lane.
* most congestion is caused by people following at the wrong distance. Having two cars per ten with automatic cruise control systems (which adjust speed to account for the vehicle in front) would eliminate almost all traffic jams.
* Adding additional highways and more lanes for traffic tends to increase traffic and erode most of the gains that the extra space would provide.

The awful:
* Almost a third of the book is spent bringing up evidence and research that supports a conclusion and then introducing confounding factors to problematize that conclusion. There is never any discussion of how significant a problematizing factor might be and no discussion as to the range of effect that any un-accounted for factor might affect a conclusion. The result is that the book has the feeling of listening to an old man hem and haw for 200 pages without resolution.

* Lots of generic opening lines that openly make assumptions about the reader: "Many of us have probably...", "we all...", "It's a common occurrence...", "you're probably wondering...", etc

*The end notes shouldn't take the place of the bibliography.(less)

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Feb 09, 2011 Tom rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, favorites, policy

This book was endlessly fascinating, and really meticulously researched (almost 100 pages of notes). I hope everyone who has read this book walks away with a more realistic view of whether or not they are good drivers. In surveys, a majority feel they are better than average, which starting several years ago I realized I was not a good driver, merely one who has avoided crashes and tickets. The book also delved into really fascinating phenomena, such as why it always feels like the other lane is...more

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Nov 29, 2010 Derek Wolfgram rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I expected to enjoy Traffic quite a bit - as a person with a psychology degree who loves to drive, I really looked forward to some interesting insights into human behavior behind the wheel. However, I only read about 60 pages into the book before I put it down.

One element I disliked was the narrative voice. Much of the book is written in the first person plural, and many of the sentence structures are awkward. To wit: "So whether we're cocky, compensating for feeling fearful, or just plain clue...more

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Oct 25, 2010 jess rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010, audiobook-d

If you're a nerd about traffic, commuting, city planning, highways, America's automobile obsession, cities improving life for pedestrians and bicycles or just the psychology of driving, this book is your jam. I really wish that I had read this several years ago when my friend Frank was teaching robots to make Pittsburgh lefts. I might have been a better conversationalist at the time. Regardless, this book has plenty of statistics, facts and figures and it is hard to absorb everything in audioboo...more If you're a nerd about traffic, commuting, city planning, highways, America's automobile obsession, cities improving life for pedestrians and bicycles or just the psychology of driving, this book is your jam. I really wish that I had read this several years ago when my friend Frank was teaching robots to make Pittsburgh lefts. I might have been a better conversationalist at the time. Regardless, this book has plenty of statistics, facts and figures and it is hard to absorb everything in audiobook form, but it is fascinating to me to learn about how we human animals move at speeds we are not evolutionarily designed to move at, in agreed patterns that do not always fulfill our psychological drives. I thought it was really interesting that most people prefer a commute that is less than (in minutes) the amount of time it takes us to travel 5 km by foot. This means that humans can comfortably roam over about 2.5 km (as far as you can walk there and back in a day). And this distance corresponds to the size of most pre-automotive city centers. I like this kind of stuff, but I'm probably not explaining it well. Allow me to cite. From The Evolution of Transportation:

A person traveling by foot covers about 5 km
in an hour. With a 1-hour travel budget to go and return
home, a pedestrian’s territory would have a radius of 2.5
km and, thus, an area of about 20 km2. We can define
this area as the territorial cell of the individual on foot.
Topographic maps until about 1800 (and for much of the
world today) showed territory that is tiled with cells of
about 20 km2, often with a village at the center.

When a village flourishes and becomes a city, the 20-
km2 territorial cell fills with people. However, its borders
are not breached. Numerous examples of belts or walls of
ancient cities show that they never exceeded 5 km in
diameter. Even imperial Rome was 20 km2. Vienna started
with a small medieval wall, its Ring. Around 1700, after its
victory against the Turks, Vienna built a second belt, the
Guertel, which had a diameter of 5 km. Pedestrian Venice
is elliptical, with a maximum diameter of about 5 km.
Ancient Beijing measured 5 × 10 km and thus seems to
break the rule. However, close observation shows that Bei-
jing was a double star—two adjacent cities, one Chinese
and the other Mongol, separated by a wall with gates.

I also liked the parts about how the more cars we have, the more we drive. More than 2 people in cars can drive more than 2 people who share 1 car, but that literally a family that owns 2 cars uses their cars proportionally more than a family with 1 car (probably bc cars become de rigueur in the lifestyle, more convenient/normalized). And the stuff about women moving into the workforce and the correlation between women drivers becoming both the biggest cause and sufferers of traffic.... AND if you add a lane to a highway it doesn't relieve congestion, and HOV lanes encourage people with families to drive more, not people who carpool to carpool more. Men are worse drivers, alcohol and testosterone are dangerous. Merge at the merge point, not at the sign that tells you to merge! And the traffic of Los Angeles is kind of a major character in this book, but other places are here too - Manhattan, Pennsylvania, I'm forgetting so many other places. The stuff about traffic engineers that coordinate green lights to get the celebrities to the Grammys on time - you guys, that is the stuff that city planning nerds have DREAMS about.

There is really just so much good stuff in this book, I could probably read it again get more out of it. If you are remotely interested in how city planning, traffic and transport work, this is a completely accessible, engrossing and interesting read. If you're not, however, this will bore you senseless. (less)

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Sep 20, 2010 Viola rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Let me start by saying that I find traffic quite interesting. I think of traffic as a social engineering problem that combines some elements of economics (you have self-interested individuals acting non-cooperatively) and some elements of mathematical physics (I know nothing about that). Given my casual interest on the topic, I was excited to read this book, but in the end, I was sorely disappointed.

The book as a whole has no coherent theme, no overall message, no driving purpose. It is a collec...more Let me start by saying that I find traffic quite interesting. I think of traffic as a social engineering problem that combines some elements of economics (you have self-interested individuals acting non-cooperatively) and some elements of mathematical physics (I know nothing about that). Given my casual interest on the topic, I was excited to read this book, but in the end, I was sorely disappointed.

The book as a whole has no coherent theme, no overall message, no driving purpose. It is a collection of interesting facts and thoughts about traffic, but with no central theme to tie everything together. I think that the sub-chapters of the book would work well individually as short articles for a magazine, an online news site, or a blog. The sub-chapters do contain interesting tidbits of information and insight. Individually, they are not bad. Collectively, they do not work. After I finished the book, I walked away from it wondering what I really learned. Unfortunately, not much.

Despite the fact that the book may have been well-researched (one-fourth of the book is endnotes), the research is not necessarily presented in a way that makes for a compelling argument or convincing message. Many thoughts were superficial and underdeveloped. The book is full of curiosity-inducing hooks with lackluster answers. For example, "Why women cause more congestion than men" is a very intriguing chapter title. Yet the answer falls flat. It is because more women have entered the workforce in the past 40 years, so they have added to the volume of cars on the streets.

Additionally, the author's arguments are often incomplete and the logic is not well-thought out. For instance, in Chapter 7, he argues in favor of getting rid of traffic signs. To make his point, the author cites the traffic engineer Hans Monderman who eliminated street signs in a Dutch village called Oudehaske. The idea is that drivers would drive slower and more safely without any street signs because cyclists and pedestrians also shared the road. Drivers would be more cautious as they are brought into a "social world" and taken out of the "traffic world." The drivers would be more aware of themselves interacting with other people rather than feeling socially disconnected within their cars. However, in the very next chapter, the author criticized the lack of street signs in New Delhi, India. He cites an illegible, handwritten "No U-Turn" sign in place of a standard street sign as an example of one of the traffic problems in New Delhi. Wouldn't New Delhi be the perfect example of a place of a "social world"? All the numerous modes of transportation are mixed into one space. Why doesn't the theory of no street signs work in New Delhi? The logic and arguments from Chapter 7 does not follow into Chapter 8, and the author does not elaborate to reconcile the differences.

Overall, I can't recommend this book. Bits and pieces of it aren't bad, but as a whole, it simply doesn't hold together. (less)

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Jan 26, 2010 Matt rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read mostly nonfiction and tend to have a taste for the abstruse, so I was surprised to find myself getting annoyed at the length of this book. Upon further reflection, I realize that this feeling results from my perception that the author provides a lot of details and cites a lot of studies but does not shape them into an interpretive paradigm or offer cogent conclusions. Thus it's just a mass of details--though often very interesting details!

A couple of salient points, for me, are the ideas...more

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

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