Whether you’re in the car for two minutes or two hours a day, odds are that traffic is your biggest complaint of driving. It’s a necessary evil, and one you’ll never look at the same way again after navigating Tom Vanderbilt’s TRAFFIC: WHY WE DRIVE THE WAY WE DO (AND WHAT IT SAYS ABOUT US), the bestseller newly available in paperback.
Given the dictionary definition of “traffic” — being “movement” — Vanderbilt points out the irony in using the word to describe its opposite. Perhaps that’s because gridlock and slow-moving drivers have become the standard. With this book, you’ll find out why that is, and what — if anything — you can do about it.
Not a whole hell of a lot, as it turns out. For instance, you know how it always seems the other lane moves faster? It’s an illusion. Traffic acts as an accordion, Vanderbilt explains, always compressing and easing, and chronic lane changers save only four minutes out of an 80-minute drive; he argues the stress in those decisions may have shaved that savings off the driver’s life!
The book is full of interesting statistics and insights, on subjects including why we seem to lose awareness while behind the wheel; why women suffer more congestion than men, yet why men are more likely to be in fatal accidents; why some countries are deadlier for drivers than others; and the absolute worst time to be on the road (hint: Almost 20 times more beer is consumed on this day than average).
In case you’re in doubt as to whether Vanderbilt’s study has any legitimacy, please note the final 100 pages of TRAFFIC are taken up by notes for the individual facts and studies cited. Don’t mistake it for a textbook, though; it’s like a really, really good magazine article — the man writes for WIRED, after all — although one long enough to read over a week’s worth of Los Angeles commutes. —Rod Lott
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Now here’s a book that, sadly, speaks directly to my life these days.