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

But I bought the ebook on Kindle, and the formatting is atrocious. Even on the widest setting, it fills only half the screen's width, with the margins taking up 1/4 of the screen on either side. It's pretty much completely unreadable, and now I have to figure out how to return an ebook.

Save yourself the headache and eye strain and just buy the paperback.

Rating:4.25

Are you an early merger or late merger? Do you text and drive? Do you think you are a better driver than most (I know I certainly do)? This book takes you through many intersections of traffic , safety, and human reasoning. The majority of accidents happen at intersections. also more accidents happen when people try to stop for a light, but more fatalities happen when lights are fun.We get an insight into LA traffic controls on Oscar night. Also, how one traffic controller takes to the air in his Cessna to analyze traffic from above. We also get an in-depth conversation with the Danish road architect who is designing roads for bikers, pedestrians, and cars.

Overall this book gives lots of little bits of information that you probably know but do not often think about. Like did you know that in work zones the workers are actually safer than the drivers? Often times people are rubbernecking and run into the back of the car in front of them. Or how about roundabouts eliminate lots of accidents that happen at normal intersections. Another interesting fact I came across in this book was safer roads tend to be more dangerous than what would be considered a dangerous road. Like a tight mountain road that feels so dangerous but is actually safer because we focus a lot more than normal on our driving. Or how about when there is a bike lane we sometimes pay less attention to the bikers because we assume they will stay in the lane, when if we have to share the road we actually give them more space.

An estimated 110 million traffic violations happen daily in Dehli. More trucks are in accidents than any other vehicle. Cars are equipped with more safety features than they have ever been, but is their safety making us more careless? One final quote "Is cars being safer making us less aware of our driving ability or is car availability allowing more inexperience on the road?"

This book was very eye opening to a few thing that I need to work on in my own driving abilities. It also showed me how cars, bicycles, and pedestrians need to find a way to cohabitate in traffic.

I enjoyed reading this book. It covers how the rotary is a safer set up than the four way intersection.
The book is written like a fiction adventure. It has a nice rhythm to the writing. The genres that are
crossed are culture, history, humor, politics, statistics, road engineering, the psychology behind signed verses
unsigned roads. The writer has done an extensive amount of research to make this a real interesting and informative book to read. I recommend it to anyone who drives, bikes, walks, etc.

For a subject that is, to most people, rather yawn inducing and boring beyond comprehension, the author actually manages to make talking about traffic interesting, though not necessarily entertaining.

Ostensibly, this book looks and feels like it might be "Freakonomics" clone, one in which the author succinctly combines various statistical studies with interesting anecdotes tied together through a Socratic series of question and answers. While "Traffic" likely pulled a lot of inspiration from "Freakonomics", it is not quite as well put together as that book. Where "Freakonomics" maintains a surprisingly smooth pace and easy-going narrative, "Traffic" tends to get bogged down in details and citations. Ironically, this is also why I give the book high marks: the author clearly did a lot of research into all things traffic related, and demonstrates that through 50+ footnotes each chapter. But overall, this creates a narrative that is somewhat TOO heavy on the data and information, and at times reads more like a statistical manual than a journalistic book trying to tell you something specific.

Regardless, the author must be praised for approaching the topic of traffic from all angles. From the introduction, which involves his own experiences as a "late merger" and offers a brief history of road engineering, to explorations of the ethics of driving in traffic, to exploring the biological shortcomings humans have in regards to controlling a fast-moving car, to crash statistics, and, toward the end of the book, explorations on alternative road engineering concepts, "Traffic" is engaging. For anyone that is truly interested in learning ALL of the ins and outs of driving with other human beings, this book is extensive. The author is well-read, did a lot of research, and writes with the experience of a well-versed journalist. But, as I said, I have to drop a star for the way the book can become stale from data overload at times.

Final note: for Kindle users, the footnotes are hyperlinks, so you can click them and read the note right on the page. And while most footnotes are just references, some pages have multiple long-form notes providing additional context. In this case, you can literally spend upwards of 3 or 4 minutes one page (whereas without reading any footnotes, you might speed by in, say, less than 1 minute).

We all hold a certain fascination with the subject of traffic, particularly while driving somewhere. The questions come quickly. Is there a better way to move cars around the grid? What leads to accidents? What is traffic like in other parts of the world?

Tom Vanderbilt lives in Brooklyn, and clearly has spent some time in traffic jams. He asked those questions, and no doubt several more, before writing the book, "Traffic." The result tries to answer those questions, although it's a difficult book to describe.

Vanderbilt touches on a wide behavioral patterns of drivers in his writing here, and I'd bet that you haven't given them much thought or even talked about them with anyone. For example, do you look at other drivers when you are stopped at lights or in a traffic jam? You probably don't. The car is your own little private world, and you probably don't want any contact with outsiders. So an awkward ballet of looking everywhere but into the next car goes on. Admit it -- you've done it.

There are all sorts of interesting facts passed along here. Vanderbilt has certainly done his research -- check out the almost 100 pages of notes at the end -- and there is a great deal going on during the typical Sunday drive. Accidents go down in traffic circles even though most people perceive them as more dangerous than a basic four-way intersection ... perhaps because they potentially are, so drivers are more careful. There are more collisions during snowstorms on the road, but fewer fatal accidents on a percentage basis ... probably because some are more cautious. Cars are getting safer but fatality rates haven't changed much ... perhaps because drivers in new cars may feel a little bit invulnerable as compared to driving the old clunker.

Oh, and 40,000 people or so die each year on the highways. Therefore, in two years we could fill up an NFL stadium with the carnage of the roads. Lowering speed limits only slightly would safe a lot of those lives, but that seems to be a non-starter politically. We gotta go fast, it seems, no matter what the consequences.

One of Vanderbilt's main points is that human behavior is a large determinant toward what happens on the roads. We install an extra brake light or antilock brakes, and we take more risks on the road. Scientists are trying to put it all together.

Vanderbilt is an entertaining writer, with a nice way of navigating us through all of this. Even so, this is difficult going at times, as it took longer than expected to read it. The stories don't seem to, well, go anywhere. A few possible solutions would have been nice.

"Traffic" certainly will make you do some thinking when you are on the roads, shattering some preconceptions and backing up others. It's just not going to be a particularly "clean and green" ride for many.

A wonderful dive into human behavior. As a fan of emotional intelligence and not of road rage...it was a fascinating gaze into why we all do what we do when on the road. Hopefully everyone can take a step back and be a bit kinder on the road as a result of this book!
Might be good to have for drivers ed students even!

As a paramedic I've seen the aftermath of thousands of crashes. As a former aggressive driver I used to study the flows of traffic to figure out the best way through. As a frustrated commuter, who happens to be an intuitive introvert, I've been fascinated by the way traffic flows and doesn't flow.

I'm currently reading this book (it's been on my list for several years), and he is confirming many of my theories - but also, he is helping me understand some of the things I haven't been able to wrap my mind around. Very interesting, somewhat humorous, and always engaging. I'm really enjoying this.

Note to the audiobook users: Be careful listening to a book on traffic while in traffic! You may find many of the insights a little too close to home.

Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt takes a closer look at a phenomenon of modern living we're all familiar with and one that we all think (secretly, at least) we're better at handling than our peers. The way we drive is selfish, inefficient and messy and yet there is a certain ease and harmony to it which is why it is still the most preferred form of travel.

The most compelling argument in this book is what I'll call "The Congestion Tax" or simply charging drivers for the privilege for using the most traveled roads. I've seen this argument in other forms (a carbon tax, for instance) and it is so compelling because there's an excellent case for both sides. The pros: Congestion would be eliminated, daily commute times would improve and fuel use per car would on average decrease. The cons: It's a regressive tax on the poorer auto users, it would be politically unpopular to enact and many would see it as a moral assault to our way of life which views roads as a shared public space freely accessible to all.

As modern progress goes, traffic will only grow larger and more complex. A universal network of toll roads is probably inevitable. It's a common contradiction that most of us view traffic as what other drivers cause and not what we ourselves are a part of too.

Library book. No purchase. Well written, well researched. Fun book. Very interesting. Certainly did his homework on this one. Lots of things I did not realize about driving and traffic patterns and laws. Might even improve my driving skills? Couldn't hurt! Author has a fun way of delivering material, too.

I have been accused of being an aggressive and unsafe driver, much to my chagrin. I know I am aggressive, but unsafe? That I take exception to. It is true however that your own perception of how you drive is much out of whack with your passenger's perspective. Traffic - Why We Drive The Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) by Tom Vanderbilt seeks to explore this most mundane of everyday activities. Driving and Traffic are technically separate but closely related subjects and Mr. Vanderbilt provides a fascinating discussion of both.

Traffic begins with Mr. Vanderbilt's admission of being a 'late-merger', someone who waits till the last moment before exiting a closed lane and merging into a parallel one. There are some drivers who choose to merge early, as soon as they see a sign indicating their lane is closed ahead (or is exit only etc.), others wait right up to the last second and then indiginantly try to merge into the freer flowing traffic of the next lane. The first few chapters of the book focus on driving, taking into account factors like cognition, culture, human psychology (and psyche), self perception of who you are and who you want to be, reflex times and the meaning of gestures and signals. Chapter Five is provocatively titled 'Why Women Cause More Congestion Than Men (and Other Secrets of Traffic)' - but don't get offended yet, the author goes on to explain why that is so. Women continue to handle a lot of 'non-work' trips, taking kids to school and soccer practice for example. Women also tend to be engaged in what Vanderbilt calls "serve-passenger" trips, where they are taking passengers to places they don't have to be themselves and they tend to make several stops thus 'chaining' multiple trips. Women also tend to leave later for work than men and therefore drive right into already congested freeways. Hence, 'women cause more congestion than men'.

About half way through the book Vanderbilt shifts gears (I couldn't resist that pun) and focuses on traffic engineering and management. Chaper Six talks about the confounding observation that as more roads are built, traffic only seems to get worse. The author explores the idea and travels around the US talking to traffic engineers and looks into the externalities of America's obsession with driving. Chapter Seven was my favorite, presenting the most interesting ideas in the book. The author talks approvingly of the work of Dutch traffic engineer Hans Monderman who supposedly hated traffic signs. The author argues, by citing examples and urging the reader to analyze his own experiences, that roads deemed to be unsafe tend have a lesser proportion of fatal crashes precisely because drivers are a lot more careful when using them. A smooth flowing freeway tends to induce boredom and distraction, and distraction at 70mph can be fatal. Chapter Eight is a quick romp through two of the worlds' most congested cities Delhi and Beijing. Both culture and corruption seem to affect accident rates and fatalities on the roads of these dense and, for a western driver, terrifying cities.

Traffic could easily have been a work of pop psychology, filled with platitudinal wisdom. The appeal of the book is that it resists that temptation. This is a well researched book with a 110 pages of notes to satisfy the obsessive reader. The writing itself is engaging and enjoyable. Highly recommended.

The structure of the book was hard to follow, feeling scattered and shifty. Beyond that flow, this is an excellent presentation of the complex social systems behind the complicated phenomena of traffic, accidents and parking. The reader learns a great deal about how their own individual decision making influences the wider course of events that produce these vehicular phenomena. Write large, the work helps readers to think more deeply about their role in the social network. This is a great tool for encouraging thoughtful consideration on the road.

While the topic of the book is nominally "traffic", the real topic is about human psychology and how it deals with the situations involving traffic. The material is chock full of "things that make you go, 'hmm.'"

In spite of being intriguing, the information the author conveys is rarely useful information. The reader will likely be left unmoved by the author's reasoned advocacy of late merging, for instance. Similarly, the style of writing feels like that of a news or talk show, where the announcer/host will "tease" an interesting bit of info, run a commercial, discuss things about which you don't care, run another commercial, and then, in the last 2 minutes of air time, give you the anticlimactic answer to the story headline you found interesting enough to make you sit and watch.

Unfortunately, most of the book is like this, and the cool things that the author has to say are just that. Cool, but not quite meriting a book. Of the book's 400 pages, nearly 100 are end notes. I am happy that the author's work is well-sourced (books of this genre often lack sources, preferring to rely on anecdotes), but it conveys how the author had to work fairly hard to turn a very large set of disjointed facts into any sort of readable narrative.

In this regard, the author's narrative is interesting and readable. It definitely made me keep reading the whole way through. At the end, however, I felt kind of empty and unenlightened, so I had to sit back and figure out why.

The reason appears to be because it's like a long magazine article: interesting, longer than a newspaper story, full of interesting insights, but in the end, it's light fare. In spite of the author's thorough research, we really don't know much about traffic in a scientific context, and even the scientists are forced to speculate anecdotally about why certain statistical artifacts are true.

Of the author's many nuggets of info, I found a couple to be very interesting. Making roads safer appears to increase the accident rate, for example. There's really nothing backing up this observation other than statistics, so anything we might derive is of questionable value, but ... it appears that when a road feels safer, drivers are encouraged to drive more hazardously - because, well, it's safer to do so. I'll leave it to the reader to speculate what this implies in other areas of life (or to read the book and read the author's speculations). Another nugget is along the same lines: adding more road signs and traffic controls to alert drivers (e.g., to alert drivers of pedestrians and bicycles, giving bicycles their own lane, putting up rails to allow pedestrians to only cross at intersections) isn't nearly as effective as simply letting cars drive on roads in which there are obviously several hazards. A dead deer carcass on the side of the road appears to encourage far more safety than a deer crossing sign. Again, I'll let the reader ponder that rather than waste time with my own unsubstantiated insights.

There are a few places where the author says/advocates things with which I expressly disagree, though I understand his motivations and reasoning for saying them. The primary item of this sort is that he explicitly says, discussing the risk due to terrorism vs. the risk due to driving, "Ironically, the normal business of life that we are so dedicated to preserving is actually more dangerous to the average person than the threats against it."

This seems a simple, straightforward statement: 40,000 lives lost due to traffic each year, but only about 5000 killed by terrorism (total, not per year, since 1960). On the one hand, I agree with this as a sentiment, because we definitely overestimate risk in spectacular cases, while ignoring risk in mundane cases. I don't, however, agree with the statement outside of that specific context: while it's easy to point out the large number of traffic deaths, that ignores the massive public benefit of being able to drive anywhere, anytime. Terrorism, on the other hand, doesn't have any accompanying net benefit.

In summary, I like this book, and it is an interesting book, but it should not be regarded as science so much as an accumulation of well-sourced statistics, interesting anecdotes, and a thoughtful discussion of an activity in which nearly all of us participate every day.

I thought this book might be enlightening about why we drive the way we do. This was the dullest 6 hours of book on CD I have ever listened to. Putting the words "fascinating" and "provocatively" on the jacket is really a stretch.

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."

"Traffic" is probably the first book that integrates so many topics about traffic: our cognitive characteristics (and limits) as drivers, economics in driving (how rational choices of individual drivers cause irrational road situations), how to organize and coordinate city traffic and influence driver behavior, how to make road safer by making it appear to be more dangerous, how does culture affect driving behaviors, etc.

The case studies and stories presented in the book come from all over the world. This is a reflection of the effort on the author's part, as well as a testimony of the difficulties in collecting such information. The author has done a very good and valuable work.

One problem of the book is that the author seems to focus more on safety, which in many places equal to making people drive slower. The benefit of time saving in driving faster was not discussed enough, although the author did discuss quite extensively about traffic jams.
Overall, I think it is a very enjoyable and informative reading, although it is not that helpful in improving one's driving. Especially, next time you are on the road, keep your attention on road instead of thinking about this book!

I was really hoping that this book would answer such questions as why so many people don't use their turn signals or insist on driving below the speed limit in the left lane. I was disappointed in that, but did learn other interesting things, like why you drive on the right in some countries, and in the left in others. Also discussed is why people drive more safely when there are fewer traffic signs and other warning devices than when there are more. It turns out that people drive more cautiously when they don't know what to expect than when they do. Similarly, people drive more safely when the car has fewer safety devices. Unfortunately, Vanderbilt spends the bulk of the book on this point and much less on the question that his title indicated he would be answering.

This book has the goods. Why do other people drive like that? It's a little padded (the footnotes section at the back is gigantic), but we can summarize it as:
* people are willing to accept a certain amount of risk. Make it safer and they'll just drive worse.
* death rates per passenger mile haven't varied much since the 1900s, due to the first point.
* motorcycle deaths are 2200% those of autos per mile
* if you can pull people from the detached 'highway' mindset where they can stop thinking to the 'urban' mindset where they're nervous and actually have to think about what they're doing, then everyone is safer.
* people who are slightly drunk are better driver than sober people.
* 18-wheelers are very dangerous, but mostly because they're heavy. Most of the accidents between tiny cars and trucks are caused by cars.

If this sounds interesting, then this is your book. Even with the extra exposition, I would surely love to deny a drivers' license to everyone who hasn't at least read this book, because you will definitely think twice about the way you drive and exactly what risks you're taking.

(Audibook, abridged). Full of great insights, not only into the externalizations of traffic, but my own internal psychological state of mind as a driver - I thought I was unique in many things but it turns out I'm like most other people. There are a ton of ideas and perspectives and I think it would take some time to fully absorb them, to drive and test them out in the real world, to observe the things described. Unfortunately I chose the audiobook version which is a poor choice for information-dense material since there is no pause in the pace and a lot of the material went by quicker than I could remember. However I did learn a lot and someday I might pick up the book as a reference to dip into here and there in smaller pieces. I really appreciated Vanderbilt's focus on people and human nature versus the more mundane things like chaos theory and mathematics. It's a challenging and powerful book if you use to question your own beliefs about yourself as a driver. Who knew a book about traffic could be so deep, or that driving could be so fascinating a subject.

As the subtitle of the book indicates, Tom Vanderbilt's well-researched book says as much about us as drivers, individuals and groups as it does about the phenomenon and mechanics of traffic itself.

The over-used term "thought leadership" applies here in a very real way. Vanderbilt has tapped into incisive opinion-makers and researchers over a surprisingly large collection of disciplines. He skillfully weaves in expert opinions in sociology, biology, economics, mathematics, engineering, politics, business and other disciplines to lay out the conundrums and contradictions of congestion. As he quotes a GM engineer - of all the problems the car industry faces (energy, safety, business model, congestion), the most intractable one is congestion. The internal combustion engine could be rendered obsolete tomorrow, and congestion probably gets worse.

I listened to the audio version of this book. Dan Slavin does a good job communicating Vanderbilt's passion for his subject. He also brings out much of the book's playful, subtle humor.

This title hints at the real subject of this book, both the macro issue of "traffic" and the micro issue of "driving." The parenthesis even suggests the interesting undercurrent, which is the nature of human society as seen through traffic.

The book works at multiple levels. Hidden in here you can find an introduction to social science - - multiple causality, selection effects, equilibrium thinking, path dependence, cognitive bias, and many other concepts in the social-science toolkit.

However, Vanderbilt focuses on the more mundane questions of driving and traffic. He looks at the limits of human cognition behind the wheel, and how drinking, distractions, sleepiness and other factors reduce our abilities. He discusses how our behavior changes when we drive safer or sexier cars (both have similar effects). We see perceptions of other drivers, interactions with other drives, and how those micro relationships become the macro phenomenon of "traffic."

You spend a large portion of your waking hours behind the wheel. This book will tell you what's going on when you do.

I agree with the many other reviewers who point out that "Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)" is not a particularly easy read. It is very detailed, parts of it are repetitious and there are many extraneous minutiae, such as, for example, the names, affiliations, appearances and capsule biographies of obscure traffic researchers. Most of these details could have been omitted or put into footnotes. Speaking of which, several reviewers disliked the 90 pages of unnumbered endnotes. I actually found these quite interesting, since most of them substantially expand on the main text rather than just list references. I didn't find them at all hard to deal with--I simply kept a second bookmark at the proper place in the endnotes section.

You can't help but learn something from this book. In particular, the Law of Unintended Consequences is alive and well in the endless conflict between logical traffic engineers and the perverse, often illogical driving public. The effects of efforts to improve roadway or vehicle safety are often exactly the opposite of what well-intentioned planners anticipate. For example, contrary to most traffic planning rules, and even common sense, there is considerable evidence that removing road signs, rather than erecting more, is a good way to reduce collisions. Likewise, the elimination of barriers between roadways, bicycle lanes and sidewalks in Dutch villages led to a great reduction in collisions--dire predictions to the contrary notwithstanding. This is fascinating, albeit somewhat academic, stuff, which unfortunately is not very useful in everyday driving.

What IS particularly useful, however, is Chapter Nine, "Why You Shouldn't Drive With a Beer-Drinking Divorced Doctor Named Fred on Super Bowl Sunday in a Pickup Truck in Rural Montana: What's Risky on the Road and Why." Vanderbilt shows how most drivers' perceptions of risk on the road are completely wrong. For example, many car drivers think semi-trucks are the greatest danger on the road. But studies show the REAL danger arises from the car drivers' themselves, and their reactions to the presence of the much larger vehicles. The study of risk is exceptionally complicated, but Vanderbilt does a great job of putting it in terms nearly anyone can understand. He discusses, in this very entertaining and informative chapter, the risks associated with various types of vehicles, alcohol consumption, gender, sex, age, time of day, type of roadway, speed, cell phones, seat belts, and many other factors. He explains why two highly touted vehicle safety improvements--the Center High Mounted Stop Light (CHMSL) and Anti-Lock Brake Systems (ABS)--had nowhere near the effect on reducing crashes as their proponents assured the public they would have. Much of this chapter is information you can use the next time you hop into your car and head off to work or to the mall.

I recommend "Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)" if you are at all interested in the technical, psychological and sociological esoterica of automobiles, their drivers, the roadways on which they operate and the environments with which they interact. It's a bit heavy going in some parts, but it's worth sticking with to the end. You may even become a better driver from having read it.

"Traffic" opens with the observation that, in situations involving a reduction of lanes, those merging as late as possible end up moving ahead much faster. I have taken advantage of that fact for years and felt somewhat guilty for doing so - until Vanderbilt also revealed that doing so speeds up overall traffic as well - 15%.

Readers also quickly learn that traffic has been an aggravation for thousands of years - Caesar banned carts and chariot traffic in Rome during the day to avoid congestion, while 1867 horses were killing an average of four pedestrians/week in New York City - higher than today's fatality rate. Bicycles have also sometimes been a source of traffic outrage.

Today more U.S. households own three cars than one, and having more cars means our driving has increased more than the population. In 1969 nearly half of American children walked or biked to school - now it is just 16%. An estimated 22% of restaurant meals are ordered through car windows in the U.S., and 1,200 CVS drugstores feature a drive-thru window.

The increase in American driving has mainly occurred among women - taking the kids to school, performing errands, etc. (Organized sports for children have doubled.) An estimated 83% of car pools are actually family pools toting family members around and taking no cars off the road. Vanderbilt contends that this undermines the purpose of car pool lanes.

Sometimes efforts to improve safety backfire, and "Traffic" explains why. For example, lengthening yellow lights extends the indecision zone, the number of cars in it, and the decisions about whether to stop or go - thus, the more chances to crash. Anti-lock brake systems and SUVs offer improved safety, but their drivers then drive more aggressively and negate that value.

Company cars are statistically the most hazardous.

Vanderbilt claims, with good justification, that drivers don't receive enough feedback to adequately improve their performance. "Drive Cam" cameras posted near the rear-view mirror and focused on the driver are one way of doing so. They have brought crash rate declines of 30-50% - recordings are kept whenever the driver breaks hard or makes a sudden turn.

Vanderbilt believes that the term "accident" is used too loosely - eg. covers stupid and deliberate actions such as speeding, DUI, texting while driving, etc. In addition, a survey of American car commercials showed that it is quite acceptable to show cars being driven in ways a panel labeled as "hazardous" - especially driving at high speed.

A large study in Virginia co-sponsored by the NHTSA found almost 805 of crashes and 65% of near crashes involved drivers not paying attention to traffic for up to three seconds prior.

"Traffic" provides evidence supporting congestion pricing, citing evidence finding minor volume reductions resulting from such. (Minor volume reductions often lead to significant congestion reductions.)

Vanderbilt cites studies finding that 70% of car-truck crashes are caused solely by the car driver.

Americans have a 1% chance of being killed in an auto accident during their life-times. Low-speed drivers are more likely to get into accidents than relatively high-speed drivers.

Men are involved in fatal crashes at a rate almost 2X that of women.

The only bad news about "Traffic" is that it sometimes bogs down in too many studies, especially conflicting ones.

Packed with more details than noontime wheels on a Los Angeles freeway, author Tom Vanderbilt's come up with a laudable work on the whats and hows of driving and drivers. Every conceivable aspect about moving vehicles and moving-vehicles on the road seems to be covered, from ABS systems, altered traffic patterns, passing 18-wheelers, photo-stops, side-view mirrors, driver attention, tolerating SUVs, congestion, re-timing traffic signals, DUI, media traffic reports, bicyclists, lane markings. Anything else? Plenty.

If you're not already anxious, as driver (or as pedestrian), about what can, does, will, might go wrong while at the wheel, this is the definitive eye-opener. We find out being in traffic is a lot more dynamic and complex an activity then we'd imagine; indeed, with the worrisome case this book makes about traffic, it's surprising we actually get to where we're going more often than not.

Actually, the author rarely gives us the "why" on we drive the way we do...but he goes off the deep end with the "how." Without many conclusions or much depth, Vanderbilt offers a complex mix of facts, hypotheses, anecdotes, premises, statistics -hundreds of them, all describing today's kind of "traffic." He's thorough, no question. Check the more than 100 pages (!) of footnotes, acknowledgements and index in the back of this information-packed edition...which could probably be a great reference book in itself. As such, the reading sometimes gets a little too "inside" and technical.

Too, "Traffic" has few solutions. "Here's an idea that didn't work...," the author might detail; but here's something that was once successfully addressed...in Belgium, he also might tell us. Matter of fact, Vanderbilt spends countless dreary pages on traffic and drivers in far-off places...like Delhi, Israel, Rome, Beijing, Mexico City, Spain, to mention just a few. He might have instead concentrated on the traffic messes we have right here...at Hollywood and Vine, State and Madison, 7th and Broadway (and places in between) instead of going to lands we never turned left in. Matter of fact, he could have completely dumped the mostly humdrum chapter on "How Traffic Explains the World." An Australian study says that "black cars crash more times than white cars." Really??

The author often points to road congestion, fatalities, crashes, lane queues, rage as mostly "driver fault"...but curiously gives a complete pass to town/city administrators, traffic engineers, and street-side enforcement whose charge it is to "keep traffic moving." Whatever cities do to alleviate their traffic jams, apparently, is always/was always just right. [Oh? Then why do we still have to contend with all the daily traffic snags? -Ah, it's we drivers.] A common use of "stop signs" as traffic control, actually on the books as forbidden in many states, is ignored. What about traffic citations; how effective are they? Are there fewer being issued? Vanderbilt doesn't say. What about all the right-turn-after-stop violations we do? Why is this allowed to go on, Tom? -And town fathers of all stripes have big plans for future hi-tek traffic management, but what about...right now? Vanderbilt stays away from analysis along all these lines....

Further, the book mostly steers clear of the common "me first" attitude people sport when driving. It's the old "I'll drive the way I want to drive" road mentality. Indeed, what of drivers who do "California rolls," ignore red lights and speed limits, pass on the right, tailgate and cut-off cyclists...with impunity? Notably, Vanderbilt says drivers do do all this but pretty much skips how we might effectively reduce the number of infractions. -Is it because "fewer" traffic tickets are in fact being written, encouraging masses of drivers to take chances while at the wheel? A closer look's not in this book....

Vanderbilt frequently uses a sobering data-base-like style. To be sure, there are enough particulars for the book to be a footnote in someone else's...such as: "...according to estimates, men die at a rate of 7.3 deaths per million miles; for women the rate is 1.3. Men die at the rate of 14.51 deaths per 100 million trips, while for women it's 6.55. And crucially, men face .70 deaths..." and on and on. Fascinating? [Page 255]

"Traffic" is loaded with specifics that'll probably matter more to psychologists and behaviorists than to ordinary drivers just trying to smoothly get to Point B. Yet, as the reader veers around some of the yawn-filled stats (that are everywhere) and global studies (on every other page)...the comprehensive work becomes readable, useful, however sometimes dry. As we learn more than we ever thought there was to learn about cold traffic in 250+ pages, it's a mildly enjoyable read. -I'd say the book's doing 45 in a 55-Zone.

This book covers interesting topics, but it is not nearly rigorous enough analytically to allow a reader to draw informed conclusions. The author relies on assumptions ("We all know that...") or anecdotal evidence to support many of his points.

In other cases where he does provide real statistics, his presentation of them is lacking. For example, in discussing construction zones, he makes what he views as a counter-intuitive point, flying in the face of the "Highway Workers: Give 'Em a Brake" safety signage: Construction zones are more dangerous for drivers than for construction workers. As evidence, he states that 85% of fatalities in construction zones are drivers and only 15% are construction workers. This is an interesting statistical tidbit, but one that does absolutely nothing to prove that construction zones are safer for workers than for drivers.

(There would be a variety of ways to actually analyze that question -- for instance, one could look at the percentage of drivers driving through work zones who die vs. the percentage of workers who die, which would almost certainly show that a much higher percentage of workers die. Or one could calculate the rate of fatalities per person minute spent in work zones for drivers vs. for workers, which might show that drivers, in the limited minutes they are in work zones, are more likely to die. The conclusion, however, is not the point. The point is that Vanderbilt's statistics don't show what he says they show.)

There are interesting historical and psychological factoids buried in the book, and the writing style is general engaging. It's just difficult to plow through the pages of dross to find the quality pieces.

Sometimes the best books are those about the most mundane of topics, such as everyday behaviors, universal feelings and common objects. This is one of those books, and it delves into the realm of human behavior behind the wheel. The author examines the whole gamut of human driving, across many countries and environments. In the process, the author introduces us to the wide range of fields of study related to driving. Whether it be studies of response times in different conditions, to differences between men and women driving skills, to the relative effectiveness of various safety features both inside and outside the car, the author touches on it all. The book is written as part history, part narrative, part statistical analysis and part science, and cites key works generated by the car industry, insurance industry, urban planners, and elsewhere. Mixed in with the facts and analysis are anecdotes by the author brings his book's ideas to life. Overall, a great book and quite a page turner.

I found the book delightful, engrossing, sometimes humorous. I loved the interplay between the (wrong) common wisdoms against the counter-intuitive facts.

Mr. Vanderbilt did a really good job of explaining the greys on topics that we tend to make black and white. Cell phone usage is an example: Instead of demonizing this one activity, he puts it into a larger context of risky driving behaviors, such as how we are distracted simply by fiddling with the radio dials.

He also did an exceptional job of describing traffic calming (and anti-calming) theories and techniques. Having already been familiar with Dan Burden's work on walkable communities, I knew some of this, but Mr. Vanderbilt expanded my knowledge considerably.

Mr. Vanderbilt's explanation that what we see in traffic depends on what we *expect* to see (and other factors) fascinated me.

I'd love this book to be required reading for all city council members and their county and regional counterparts.

Why three stars instead of four or five?

a. Mr. Vanderbilt repeats quite a bit of his points throughout the book; the repetition goes beyond what's helpful as references to past points made while in the process of making new points.

b. Frequently, Mr. Vanderbilt makes what appear to be important concluding statements, but I found myself on several occasions scratching my head, thinking, "huh"? as if there were critical pieces of data inadvertently left out, or the logic completely escaped me.

c. About midway, the delightfulness of the book's contents turned into a bit of a chore. Some painful editing might have been a good thing.

Overall, though, I highly recommend this enjoyable book.

Sitting in traffic one often wonders about the cause of the delay and what can be done about it. The idea that drivers could still be sitting in congestion long after the cause has dissipated is fascinating and consistent with day to day observations. This book examines traffic congestion, accidents, driving patterns and the implications for road design. It is written for the casual reader rather than the specialist.

The first chapter is a long and meandering discussion of driver psychology which made me think that Driving would have been a more appropriate title than Traffic. It is more about people than about vehicles and less about the mechanics of traffic flow than about human behavior. This is both enlightening and frustrating, because the author seems to imply that much of what determines traffic cannot be quantified or rigorously modeled. This makes the tone somewhat unscientific. Much of the discussion of driver behavior relies on quotes from various authorities rather than a critical evaluation of their data. Presumably a conscious choice was made not to include charts, diagrams or equations. A pity, because the subject matter would have been better illuminated with visual aids. The examination of interesting concepts like rolling traffic jams strikes me as superficial.

The book's biggest flaw is the poor editing. The material is presented without much organization, with disparate ideas not only sharing the same chapter but often the same paragraph. Because of the meandering and halting flow (akin to downtown traffic) the author's thesis is unclear. `What is the bottom line?' one wonders. Findings of different researchers are lumped together with no effort to divide them into arguments for or against a particular conclusion or to distinguish between stronger and weaker lines of reasoning. The author presents the opinions of different experts but makes no attempt to seriously evaluate them or to present a contrary opinion. The result is a curiously bland discussion with no hint of any disagreements within the field.

In summary, Traffic examines issues of interest to any driver and touches upon interesting concepts. The lack of critical analysis and poor organization detract from what could have been a fascinating book.

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.

"Traffic" freaked me out. I knew that 40,000 people died each year on our roads. And I knew that a car accident was the most likely way that trauma would encroach into my world. Vanderbilt gives me lots more things to worry about (like Dr's have the 2nd highest accident rate, pick-up trucks are dangerous to everyone else, new cars have higher accident rates then older cars, and intersections are bad news for bikers, runners, and drivers.

This is a book I'd like my girls to read as a prerequisite to getting their license (and I'll install the driver cam that Vanderbilt writes about being effective in teaching young drivers defensive skills).

Read the book. Slow down on the roads.

Nothing sends a person over to the dark side faster than climbing behind the wheel of an automobile. Even a saint can turn into a monster behind the wheel. It's a good thing Gandhi didn't have a car. The automobile's ability to bring out the worst in humans has to be one of the most fascinating aspects of human behavior.

It's beyond me how an author turns such a vital topic into a dull treatise. This book is like reading crop reports or SEC filings. He managed to suck the life out of a potentially gripping story.

Vanderbilt is a champion of the driving tactic known as the "late" merge. You're cruising along in the right or left lane of a freeway with heavy traffic. A sign ahead alerts you that your lane is ending. You sensibly merge with traffic in the through lane. That makes you a foolish "early" merger. You should stay in the disappearing lane! Step on the gas, zoom down the lane to the very end, then swerve into traffic at the last possible second. You'll be cutting in ahead of all the chumps who merged earlier. Let 'em eat your dust.

The traffic experts Vanderbilt consulted convinced him that this is a really cool way to drive. People who merge too soon are wasting precious highway space, we're told. Vanderbilt makes a big issue of this to demonstrate that apparently sane, sensible driving isn't always savvy driving. So, the next time you encounter this situation, jump out of the lane you're in and join the late mergers! Whee!

He has a curious take on taking fellow drivers to task when they commit an infraction. Common sense tells you not to risk getting beaten with a tire iron. Not so fast says Vanderbilt:

"So perhaps, as the economist Herbert Gintis suggests, certain forms of supposed "road rage" are good things. Honking at or even aggressively tailgating that person who cut you off, while not strictly in your best self-interest, is a positive for the species." You'll find many such contrarian gems as you burn rubber through the pages of this book.

I recommend the book nonetheless. It's such an important subject that even uninspired treatment is better than nothing.

I'm surprised to see the complaints about end notes. End notes are fairly common. It's wise to keep all that material separated from the main text.

I picked up _Traffic_ after hearing the author's interview on a local radio show. The book does, and does not live up to its premise. As others have noted -- the style can be difficult. Factoids compete with each other for the reader's attention. Overall themes, such as the peverseness of human behavior as it affects risk-assessment and response; that making things safer can make people take greater risks; that cell phone use while driving is bad; etc., are examined from several angles, then flogged until those horses are quite dead.
There's a nifty section on a less-is-more school of road design and signage that would have strongly benefited from some photographs, rather than the author attempting to describe the street design and flow.
The author talks a bit about attention-blindness (referring to the famous "Gorrillas in our Midst" study), and about the malleability of memory and perception, but doesn't seem to draw the thoughts together. Those interested in a more academic approach to this topic might want to try Dewar and Olson's _Human Factors in Traffic Safety_ (2007).
Others have already commented on the editorial choice to use endnotes instead of footnotes, and they are right. The book comes to an end rather abruptly, with the reader left to face about 100 pages of endnotes, which can be hard to relate to their text.
All in all, it is an informative read, but could have been stronger with a bit more editing.

This book provides fascinating insights and counterintuitive information about all aspects of driving. From the large number of annual trafiic fatalities, to the data that tells us who is likely to get into an accident and why, to why traffic signs and signals sometimes do more harm than good, to why roads and cars that are engineered to be safer can actually lead to more dangerous driving, Tom Vanderbilt provides an intriguing read about America's driving habits, the cultural nuances that make this experience different in other countries, and the possibility for future improvements. Read this book and you will never see the road, other drivers or yourself in the same way again.

I ordered this book, as I expect many will, because I wanted to understand the causes of my most frustrating driving experiences. Why it is that any lane I choose to drive in always seems to move the most slowly? When I'm driving quickly along a multi-lane highway, I suddenly encounter enormous traffic congestion and crawl along in bumper-to-bumper traffic for a half hour. Suddenly, all the cars begin to speed up again, and I never encounter any evidence of something that might have caused the slow down in the first place. Why is that? When I see the sign, "Construction ahead, merge right," I merge right. I am then passed by countless speeding cars in the left lane, and drivers who wait until the last possible second before forcing themselves into my lane. Why are these speeding transgressors never punished?
Indeed, "Traffic" answered many questions such as these, but ultimately, it accomplishes so much more. It presents itself for a must read for any thinking driver. In spots, it can be a difficult read, and one occasionally wishes that the author had been less thorough in the presentation of his extensive research. (The 90 or so pages of notes referenced in several reviews is, I think, an effort on the part of the author and editors to make the core book more readable while providing additional information for those who want to pursue it.) By and large it's quite readable, even at the beach!
I learned a great deal about highway engineering in this book, but I then learned that better engineering is not necessarily a solution and might, indeed indirectly contribute to the problem. What "Traffic" points out is that we, as drivers, do a great deal to negate the best efforts of traffic engineers. The author observes that, ironically, because we perceive one highway to be inherently safer than another, we drive on that highway in a manner that makes it less safe. We assume that the "safe highway" will automatically make us safer. To some extent, we can blame the highway engineers, but the reality, the author tells us quite compellingly, is that the enemy is us. Because we drive as individuals, each in his/her own metal box, any "systems analysis" of traffic flow becomes almost impossible, as we don't all play by the same rules. Furthermore, the author's research reveals that each of us considers himself/herself to be a very good driver; it's all those other idiots who are creating the problems. Hopefully, to read this book will cause one to think differently as a driver.
Toward the end of the book, the author compares the number of people dying annually in traffic accidents with the number who were killed on 9/11. It shouldn't be surprising to learn that the number of people dying on our highways annually dwarfs the number who died in that terrorist attack. Yet, the author points out, most Americans have willingly accepted the inconveniences and loss of personal freedoms that have been imposed on us by the Department of Homeland Security. At the same time, we strenuously resist any changes in driving regulations that impinge on those personal freedoms--and willingly continue to accept highway death rates that are utterly absurd.
I learned a great deal about traffic as I read this book, but, primarily I learned a much more about myself as a driver. "Traffic" provides many thoughtful observations and suggestions to think about, but, more importantly, to act on. In this particular context, "Traffic" is a very important book.

Taking a page from bestselling pop-science reads "The Tipping Point" and "Freakonomics," Tom Vanderbilt's "Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)" is filled with deliciously counterintuitive factoids and provocative declarations sure to start conversations. And like most of these breezy non-fiction titles, which are engaging but not exactly taxing on the mind, "Traffic" is written to be read in short sittings -- on the subway commute to work, in a waiting room or during a visit to the bathroom. Plus, "Traffic" is the kind of book that readers will love arguing and agreeing with. It both confirms our suspicions that everyone on the road is an insensitive moron and questions our most basic assumptions about the rules of the road. Author Vanderbilt says it best when he writes, "We all think we're better than the average driver. We think cars are the risk when on foot; we think pedestrians act dangerously when we're behind the wheel. We want safer cars so we can drive more dangerously."

A book on traffic should rank among the dullest reads imaginable, right up there with estate planning guides and appliance repair manuals. Instead, it was absorbing enough to keep me entertained during an 8-hour flight in coach (aisle seat, thank god). This title is an excellent example of science as storytelling. It's not intended to be a "how-to" guide for drivers, although it's impossible for the author to avoid an occasional reference to driving technique.

The book's author has pulled together the most interesting facts from what must have been an extensive review of the research in traffic and automotive engineering, motor vehicle safety, automotive history, social sciences, pedestrian behavior and crowd dynamics, urban planning, and related areas. He uses these findings to explain various traffic phenomena, such as bottlenecks, gridlock, road rage, rubbernecking, tailgating, speeding, and jaywalking. He also cites studies that shoot down seemingly commonsense safety assumptions. For example, the suburban commuter would have been better off had he chosen to live in the city, since his increased accident risk far outweighs the threat of urban violence. Cyclists are actually safer riding in the street than on the sidewalk, since street cyclists are more visible to motorists when traversing intersections, where most collisions occur.

I downloaded the audiobook version of Traffic from the library after I heard Roman Mars recommend it on his podcast "99% Invisible." If you enjoy that sort of peek under the hood, you won't be disappointed.

No one likes traffic jams or traffic accidents, but everyone finds something to blame. It's the layout of the highway, bad signage, weather, unresponsive cars, poor safety features, and so on. Those might be a part of the problem, but they aren't the problem. Traffic would be much faster and much safer if it weren't humans doing the driving. It's not that robots are going to take over any time soon (though there is, of course, work being done on this); it's that humans didn't evolve to control themselves hurtling over the landscape at sixty miles an hour in an anonymously enclosed vehicle with everyone else zipping along, too. What happens when people get behind their steering wheels is the subject of _Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)_ (Knopf) by Tom Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt, who writes columns on design, science, and technology, does take into account highway and automobile engineering, but only as part of responses to human behavior. And the behavior isn't intuitively obvious. "Most crashes," he writes, "happen on dry roads, on clear, sunny days, to sober drivers." And new cars crash more often than old ones. And signs and careful control of the road environment can lead to more crashes, not fewer. Vanderbilt's eye-opening and amusing book is full of paradoxes and problems, and even a few solutions.

There are some places that just produce slowdowns as part of the "normal" traffic flow. You'd think that just adding a lane or two would speed things up, but paradoxically, this seldom happens, because of the "pasture problem" (or Tragedy of the Commons): Make a bigger pasture, and people simply bring more cows. This is far from the only paradox described here. Think of the sensible safety gadgets that the manufacturers have installed as standards on cars, like seat belts, anti-lock brakes, air bags, and high center brake lights. Obviously they make us safer. Maybe the upcoming electronic stability control will make us safer again. But the problem is, they do not work, or at least not nearly at the rate that those planning the changes had expected. A study of German taxi drivers with anti-lock brakes, for instance, showed that drivers with them drove faster and closer to other vehicles than those without. In other words, and this is a truly dismal outcome, if you make a car safer, the driver is more comfortable taking more risk, so you are back to square one. It isn't just the cars; making the roads safer does the same thing. Paradoxically, making the roads less safe, ensuring that drivers have to mingle with bicyclists and pedestrians and pay attention to the mix, can produce more attentive driving and fewer accidents.

Vanderbilt has picked an inherently interesting topic, with aspects of psychology, history, sociology, automotive engineering, and road science. He has interviewed experts on the visual capacity of drivers, queuing theorists, and even the man who ensures that Los Angeles pedestrian walk signals are kosher. Observant Jews cannot press a button at a stoplight to cross the street on the Sabbath, and it is a violation even to trigger passively a motion sensor, so the stop lights keep track of the Jewish Calendar. He has talked with experts on the chariot wear patterns on the curbstones of Pompeii. And reading this book may actually make people better drivers. Driving is, Vanderbilt says, the most complex everyday thing most of us do. A survey of a stretch of road in Maryland found that a driver was presented with 1,320 information bits per minute. This is a possible answer to a poser that is a chapter title here: "Why You're Not as Good a Driver as You Think You Are".

If you've been following articles about traffic in newspapers, magazines, and on the web, there aren't a whole lot of shockers in the book. Vanderbilt assembles a mix of anecdotes and summaries of research results, but never really manages to make the connections between them that I expect in a book. He has 402 pages to make a difference, to really explain the big picture of congestion, how it affects us, and how we can fix it -- alas, he just kinda wiffs it.

On the other hand, it's a quick read and it's reasonably well-written. I certainly picked up some new information. (For instance, I'd never heard of DriveCam -- what a cool gadget!)

This book changed the way I drive, dramatically and for the better. It's a super-readable, arm chair science book that disseminates research on driving habits and traffic patterns. It's fascinating and directly translates into better driving habits. Can't recommend highly enough.

Traffic is both vindicating and disheartening for people such as myself who fancy themselves excellent drivers. I found myself frequently quoting passages from Vanderbilt's lengthy tome to prove to my spouse that, as I had previously observed but had no empirical evidence to support, other people's poor driving habits endanger me and anyone else forced to share the roads with those idiots. However, as I read on I would inevitably get silent as he described other dangerous driving habits that I have (on rare occasions, of course) been guilty of.

Although road engineering and safety features in automobiles are discussed, Vanderbilt makes a convincing case that ultimately human behavior determines accident rates. Anytime engineers find a way to make driving safer or traffic flow more smoothly people will inevitably find a way to crash or cause congestion.

This book is a meticulously researched wake up call that every driver should read. Unfortunately, despite the fact that this book is creeping up the Times best seller list, many people will not. Although written in clear prose and filled with amusing person anecdotes, this book does require some concentration and dedication to get through. It is well researched (as the lengthy notes section at the end demonstrates), and consequently is quite long and contains a lot of numbers and statistics. It is doubtful that a person who cannot concentrate on the driving task will be able to make it through this book. Interested parties will be rewarded however... or at least will have some interesting things to discuss on their cell phones while driving to work.

I really enjoyed Traffic. It is packed with interesting and useful facts. I read the first hundred pages or so in an hour, then had to get into my car and drive. I found my habits, visual search patterns, and thinking to have changed greatly. It didn't change how I drove, it changed my perceptions of what was going on around me.

I had a hard time putting this book down and would recommend it to anyone who drives regularly or better yet, who deals with "traffic"

my only complaint would be the end notes are quite lengthy (though informative). it also is hardcover, which i prefer for longevity, but dislike for price reasons.

After the first 60 pages of this exhaustive socio/pop-cultural/political/economic/every-discipline-under-the-sun (but highly readable!) pexamination of the vicissitudes of "why we drive the way we do," I thought, "Wow... I hadn't realized traffic could be so interesting."

200-some pages later, I thought to myself "Wow... I'm so *over* reading about traffic."

The author does a great job of researching and writing what he surely intends to be t...more After the first 60 pages of this exhaustive socio/pop-cultural/political/economic/every-discipline-under-the-sun (but highly readable!) pexamination of the vicissitudes of "why we drive the way we do," I thought, "Wow... I hadn't realized traffic could be so interesting."

200-some pages later, I thought to myself "Wow... I'm so *over* reading about traffic."

The author does a great job of researching and writing what he surely intends to be the "only pop-nonfiction book you'll ever have to read" on the subject. He tries to squeeze every single thing he's learned into the book, which makes it a bit much. But don't be *too* scared by the book's 402 pages. 116 of those pages are research notes, acknowledgments, and index.

This book summarizes a lot of studies showing that understanding traffic behavior requires grappling with the foibles of human psychology (biases, heuristics, etc.), rather than simply using physics-inspired engineering models of traffic 'flows'. I'm not a traffic engineer, but my involvement in road design certainly involves elements of traffic engineering, and I frankly learned a lot from this book.

The most central take-home message is that people adjust their behavior to adapt to circumstances, including perceived risks, so many of the measures we common-sensically apply to reduce traffic congestion and improve safety can be ineffective or even make things worse.

There are many other valuable insights in this book, so the book is well worth reading for both drivers and professionals involved with managing traffic.

A well researched and thorough book that reads like a good article in "Wired" but book length! A little US centric but manages worldwide coverage.

Topics covered include driving psychology, driving aids, traffic planning, problems with perception and concentration and lots and lots of good statistics. Despite being US centric, the author manages to provide a book that is interesting, and challenging.

It is perhaps not a must read for everyone, but if you are remotely interested in why we drive the way we do, and in understanding our fellow motorists, this is a book for you. If you want to be a better driver, there is also plenty of good information here - but it is not primarily an advanced driving manual. Nevertheless it repays the time spent reading it.

Calling Americans as a group "gun-crazy" is sort of like calling us "free-speech crazy," except that author Tom Vanderbilt never acuses our interest in preserving our First Amendment as being responsible for deaths (12--fewer than, he notes, are killed annually in America by lightning) on the road.

But perhaps Volvo drivers (TWICE pointed out that the author is) just have an unnatural fear of guns.

The point of his book: Everyone tends to overestimate our driving and love-making skills. We all want more people (but not us) to use public transportation. Building more roads just encourages more people to use them. And few people really have basic driving skills, having received instruction as teenagers in how to get a driver's license--not necessarily in how to be a good driver.

The book is generally dry and spends an inordinate amount of time talking about the diets of crickets and the commute patterns on ants. Its saving grace--also a flaw of generalization--is that instead of quoting numbers exclusively, somewhat-vague phrases such as "Even people who do not own a car are more likely to commute via car than public transit."

Lots of interesting facts. Some very counter-intuitive. But how can you have a very dense book on traffic, with lots of data on fatalities, and not spend significant time comparing countries' driving education programs? What an error! Having taken driving tests in Sweden, The UK and the USA, I can predict fatalities based on how difficult and thorough (or not, in the case of the US) these programs are. Book mentions the safe Swedish roads (from a fatality perspective) but doesn't talk about the incredibly difficult and demanding drivers' ed! Also, I don't recall the autobahn getting a single mention in the book! HUGE miss number two. Is that perhaps because The Autobahn has such an impressive safety record (miles traveled per capita), which contradicts the author's love for low speed limits? In summary, I admire the effort overall, but it lacks in several important areas.

This was less interesting than I had hoped. I was hoping for a "Freakonomics" of Traffic, with surprising insights into driving behavior, the causes of traffic jams, and the psychology of driving. There is some of that -- a good example is "risk homeostasis", the way in which drivers tend to adjust their driving behavior to produce the same level of risk, no matter how safe or unsafe their cars or driving conditions are (SUV drivers tend to drive less attentively, probably without being aware they are doing so, obliterating any safety advantage they get from driving their gigantic heaps of metal; ABS brakes have had no significant effect on accident rate, as drivers who have them simply drive more carelessly or faster).

But the insight/page density was a little low, I thought.

So much information in this book (and let me say, really interesting facts on traffic, roads, drivers etc) but you get brain-strain trying to remember it al1.

Feel like I need to get an edited copy, with some of the most important and relevant facts all compiled easily (a bit like the Q&A with the author that is attached to this book listing in the store). It is a worthwhile read but its not one that you can read all in one go as there is a lot to take in.

I heard a radio interview with the author and wanted to read his book. I am glad I read it, because it is interesting and has several counter-intuitive observations about how traffic works. He explains why sometimes "slower is faster," why it is best for everyone to wait until the last minute to merge, and some ways that trying to make a road more beautiful can also make it more safe.

This book needed a little bit more focus and a little bit more sense of point. I definitely learned more about the subject, but it hasn't changed my life. All that being said, this book is certainly worth reading.

After reading all the glowing reviews for this, I figured I'd buy the audio cd to listen to on my drive to work. What a complete waste of time. I kept expecting him to get to the good parts or interesting parts or parts where we'd get to that glorious insight he keeps talking about. But it never comes. IT NEVER COMES! Just on and on about some anecdotal nonsense that anyone with a 2 digit IQ could craft, delivered breathlessly like you are about to behold the lost ark of the covenant. But there is nothing there. Just vacuous drivel.

I have to ask what the 3+ star raters were smoking or drinking when they scored this book. I felt actually dumber after being exposed to this inane and boring waste of life. Traffic is less about "why we drive and what it says about us" and more about "why we write books about things everyone already knows as if it's some insight but instead waste everyone's time and money."

They should refund my full amount and pay me extra for wasting my time. I'll be keeping an eye on those clueless dolts who rated this a 3 star or above. Never ever ever ever ever ever trust anything they say.

Here's another one of those books that would have probably made a terrific long magazine article, but it has been forced into a book, which means that it contains padding upon padding upon padding, until the main point of each chapter is buried. I expected to find scientific information in this book: I did not. I found the writing uninteresting: monotonous sentences. I am very interested in the topic of traffic and road safety, so I was very eager to read this book. I could not.

If you're really interested in driving and traffic, then you will likely enjoy reading this book. I thought that I would be interested in reading about driving and traffic, but it turns out that I wasn't.
The author did everything right: he did a lot of research on traffic, organized his findings and wrote it up clearly. However, it never really works as a full-length book. Like half of all non-fiction books written today, it probably would have worked better as a magazine article.
There are two main problems with the book. First, it contains a lot of information in several sections, all of which are dense and well-researched, and some of which are more interesting than others (I liked the sections on controlling congestion and the unexpected effects of increasing safety features; I didn't care for the parts on people overestimating their driving skills and people eyes and ears betraying them on the road). But with all of this information, there is no overarching theme or story. There is nothing that the author is trying to say that you can summarize in a few sentences or a few paragraphs. He's just listing a bunch of stories about driving and traffic. Hence, it doesn't come together as a book.
Second, it seems in multiple places that the author doesn't really understand some of the more technical material that he is writing about. Granted, he is not a traffic scientist, but he is writing a book about traffic science, so he should be somewhat of an expert. He has the habit of putting quote marks around scientific phrases or concepts as an excuse for not defining or describing them. Some of these he shouldn't have trouble with; I think that we should all know what a percentile is! Though I may be misreading several of his sentences, a number of times I was struck by the impression that he doesn't really understand the difference between absolute numbers and percentages. For example, more pedestrians are killed at marked crosswalks than jaywalking. But more pedestrians take marked crosswalks than jaywalk. What matters is the rate at which pedestrians are killed in each of those situations. I am not sure that he really gets that. He certainly didn't explain it clearly if he does, several times.
In short, this book is filled with interesting stuff, but it isn't interesting as a whole. I would suggest just reading a few chapters to see if you like it. Have low expectations, and you might enjoy it more than I did.

For a subject that has the potential of being very dry, this is a well-written book on ins and outs of traffic. Its entertaining, enlightening, and insightful...or inciteful when you realize that you're not the good driver that you think you are.

For those drivers who live out in the sticks (like my dad in Stowe, Vermont, they may ask, "What traffic?" (To them, four cars within a mile of each other is a traffic jam.) But for us "road warriors" who inch along I-405 in L.A. or I-5 in and out of Seattle, the book opens our eyes to the dynamics of traffic and what we can, and can't, do something about it.

Just don't read the book while merging, okay?