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Nov 20, 2008

Craig rated it:

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...

1 comment like (19 people liked it)

May 02, 2008

Michael rated it:

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...

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Jan 15, 2010

Jason rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Mar 09, 2009

Ken rated it:

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

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6 comments like (6 people liked it)

Oct 11, 2011

MRM rated it:

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...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 29, 2008

Nicholas rated it:

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...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

Sep 26, 2008

Jeff rated it:

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...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 30, 2008

Gwen rated it:

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...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Sep 12, 2008

Joyce rated it:

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...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Oct 01, 2008

Roger rated it:

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...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 10, 2009

Kevin "El Liso Grande" rated it:

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.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 15, 2010

Elaine rated it:

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...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 05, 2012

Dustin rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 28, 2012

Brooks rated it:

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 – More...

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Nov 28, 2011

Nathaniel rated it:

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...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 27, 2011

Melissa rated it:

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 rated it:

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 More...

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Feb 09, 2011

Tom rated it:

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 rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 25, 2010

jess rated it:

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...

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Sep 20, 2010

Viola rated it:

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 More...

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Jan 26, 2010

Matt rated it:

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, More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 13, 2009

Grace rated it:

I had no idea that a 286 page book on traffic could be so riveting. Tom Vanderbilt's "Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About us)" is a entertaining joyride through the world of traffic and driving here in America as well as all over the world.

Let's face it: traffic is a big part of our daily lives. As soon as we climb into the driver's seat, shut the door, and turn the key into the ignition of our cars, we become different people and different rules se More...

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Dec 10, 2009

Daniel rated it:

Whoever thought traffic engineering could be interesting? I worked at the Utah Traffic Lab for months doing IT. If I knew that engineers and researchers have this much fun, I would have switched majors. Vanderbilt has a knack for finding the most interesting studies in the fields of engineering, transportation planning and social psychology. In this book, he weaves them all together.

There are a few take-aways for planners: 1. due to traffic fatalities, cities are less dangerous than More...

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Dec 10, 2009

Jonny99 rated it:

<http://www.howwedrive.com/>

The next time someone accuses me of ADD-driven circumlocution, I am hitting them with a copy of Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt. The long and winding book is advertised as reviewing the human behavioral components of driving but Vanderbilt goes from evolutional psychology to the thoughts of Swiss economists to the television show Seinfeld. He references Seinfeld quite often yet I don’t remember many of the episodes having much to do with driving(?).
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Dec 06, 2009

Gary rated it:

Interesting book, especially when he quotes real statistics or describes neat things like the in-car video recording system. I thought the observation that things really go wrong when your attention is away from the road for three seconds was worth writing a whole book about onits own. Similarly with the observation that less can be more in road systems. Generally though I think it suffers a little from the author not being a specialist in the field. I think he does miss some things (or I just d More...

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Sep 05, 2009

Herbie added it

When this came out in hardcover I dismissed it, mostly because it looks car-centric. But now that the bookstore where I work is flooded with copies of the paperback, I decided to crack it open. I've never read a better argument for livable streets and sane congestion policy. Vanderbilt unravels all of our assumptions about traffic. He lets it be as complex and counterintuitive as it really is.

By the way, he deals quite a bit with pedestrians and cyclists, and exposes how motorized traf More...

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Jun 19, 2009

Steve rated it:

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;

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0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 29, 2009

Christopher rated it:

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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May 17, 2009

Kat marked it as 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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