Traffic

Object Lessons

by Paul Josephson, Christopher Schaberg (Series Editor), Ian Bogost (Series Editor)

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

Speed. Bump. Speed. Traffic considers the history and philosophy of roundabouts, speed bumps, the pedestrian mall, and other efforts to manage traffic. Exploring ways to reign in the power of the internal combustion engine, ramp back century-long efforts to increase the flows of traffic, and establish greater balance between humans and machines, Paul Josephson considers the history of traffic, and the political and other controversies that frame the belated technological efforts to calm it.

Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

Genres: Nonfiction

192 pages, Paperback

Published March 9, 2017

Reviews

[Pamela · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book in the Object Lessons series took on a serious tone to the subject. The book is of a small size and usually these series books are usually quickly read books.

In looking at traffic, the focus was on safety and traffic calming measure, specifically with the speed bump. It has many different names, one of my favorites is in Russian it is referred to a the sleeping policeman. These roadway bumps can take on several different forms, but they are there in order to calm traffic and speeds. With slower speeds pedestrians and bicyclists can share safer roads. One of the best things about speed bumps are they are very low cost and easy to add to the roadway.

Other safety features in the automobile was discussed, such as seatbelts, interior design changes and airbags, all to make the car safer in the event of an accident. The book did have a leaning towards looking at the regulations of the United States, but other countries were often mentioned. There was a chapter on Brazil and longish one on Russia. The county with the strictish measures of safety does have the lowest number of fatalities per 100,000 persons, this is the Netherlands at 3.9, worldwide the average is 18.

Overall the book does come together as a cohesive unit, but many of the chapters felt like individual essays, somewhat disjointed from one to another. The speed bump was the one consistency throughout.

[Arkar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Moderately interesting, short read with a brief history of how traffic problems came about, and arguments for proper city planning--revolving around people, not automobiles--with a heavy emphasis on 'speed bumps' as the most cost effective and simple solution.

However, I felt the argument for speed bumps was one-sided and written as the perfect solution. The book even though named 'Traffic' also did not address the larger picture of traffic issues, and other solutions.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this. It's about something that most of us see every day, that to be honest, I thought that the subject would be boring and dry. I was wrong - it's interesting and fun and easy to read. If you're interested in how the world works in an everyday way, then read this.

[Ed Scherrer · Rating 2 out of 5]

"The automobile is an insect that eats cities, and its parking lots are a gangrene." -- From the always excellent Guy Davenport's essay Make it Uglier to the Airport.

Young people today can hardly imagine the carnival of horrors that untempered glass car windows and noncollapsable steering columns wrought on the occupants of cars that juddered about without airbags, seat belts and bumpers: tombs on wheels, they were. But even after safety innovations were deemed cost effect and enough crash tests were performed with live animals as dummies, today's roads and cars continue to claim too many lives because of poor infrastructure, our unsafe culture of speed and spatial ignorance, as well as pollution. The Swedes are hard at work to curb these deaths. Everyone else just pays lip service to their "Vision Zero." I read this book because I live in Toronto, a city that feels on the precipice of turning into a fuming parking lot that occasionally spasms to life to mow down elderly pedestrians who find themselves caught 500 meters between the nearest crosswalk. Our infrastructure and politicians have served the car well, while at the same time, cops enforce traffic less and less. The author of this short book submits the easiest solution is the noble speed bump "the sleeping policeman", swells of them, moguls of asphalt or plastic everywhere. If we can't get people out of their cars with mass transit, pedestrian malls, bicycles, or the unlikely appeal of a flaneur philosophy that evokes Baudelaire, we must try and get everyone to slow the fuck down and share the road in less homicidal ways.

Irreverent takeaway: people who fall from their jetskis at high speeds can experience high pressure hydraulic enemas that doctors call "rectal blowout."