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

Tom Vanderbilt's Traffic is an engaging, fun, humbling and instructive book that I purchased for some light reading. The dimensions of the human activity called "driving" and its resultant "traffic" are, as described in this book, more complex than rocket science.

There is a bit of something for everyone in this book: sociology, geography, archeology, psychology (including abnormal,) evolutionary biology, entomology, civil engineering and architecture, statistics, politics, religion, and the philosophy of aesthetics.

I can't add much to the already excellent reviews of Traffic, but will suggest that having read it, I have changed behaviors that have been enmeshed within my psyche for the last 30 years on the road. To get a glimpse into the behavior of drivers in traffic, and thus to see my own behaviors, is to simultaneously come to empathize with my fellow travelers but also to appreciate our human limitations. As a species we simply haven't evolved to handle the speed and complexity of our technology of travel, and the sobering statistic of 40,000 traffic-related fatalities each year is beyond comprehension and generally under the radar of media attention.

I highly recommend this book, this story of traffic that is a worldwide phenomenon, where each culture takes on the challenge sometimes in its own unique way. I learned something about you, me, and citizens around the world by reading about this "common-denominator" activity and its societal dimensions.

I concur that at times, the chapters seemed a bit "long." I didn't think this took away from the enjoyment or the flow of the writing. The overall content more than made up sometimes having to "muscle through" a less-interesting paragraph.

On a personal note, I have decided to commit to something that my wife will appreciate: after reading about the effects of alcohol and statistics of accidents/fatalities, I will not drive even after one, non-buzzing drink. When I have a casual, social drink, without feeling any effects of the alcohol, I am seven times more likely to be involve in or to cause a fatal accident behind the wheel. If for no other reason, I'd suggest we read this book to appreciate the statistics of driving under the influence, whether or not we realize we are under that influence or will readily admit to it.

Have fun, be safe in traffic, and enjoy this book!

Vanderbilt does a great job of bringing to light a lot of interesting quirks in how we drive. Unfortunately his still of prose is a little too much like a manual so sometimes what should be fascinating becomes mildly interesting.

Overall a very good read but if you read it at night it might take longer.

A fascinating and eye-opening look at the reasons behind the ways we drive. You may not be as good a driver as you think you are, and this book will tell you why. Written in an entertaining style, but with full documentation and endnotes for those who need more

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."

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.