Recently a thought leader I follow recommended a book I hadn’t heard of, and I quickly checked it out of my local library. “Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)” sounded like ideal reading for someone who writes about the car industry.
Though it was published in 2008, before many of the technological advances we now take for granted, the bulk of the book is packed with timeless insight into the cherished American experience of the road. It even takes absorbing detours to other countries, opening windows onto practices alien to our motoring minds.
“Traffic” delves into all things road-related, from the anatomy of traffic, including dreaded jams, to road design and driving safety. Despite what might seem like dry material, I found it to be a page-turner I reluctantly put down each night before bed (though I didn’t have bad dreams about traffic).
For instance, it digs into the phenomenon we’ve all experienced as drivers: finding we’ve zoned out on the road and can’t remember some miles and minutes behind us. In fact, in a scary reading moment, it revealed that some even doze off behind the wheel.
It dissects American approaches to moving traffic through intersections – turns out roundabouts are actually the safest design, though they’re far from common here.
It delves into how traffic jams develop and the best approach to merging.
And it describes the most effective traffic-calming designs to keep people, especially pedestrians, safe.
Bonus fact: Professional racecar drivers aren’t the safest pilots in their civilian rides.
Vanderbilt obviously took to the subject with gusto, packing what seems like an obsessive volume of research into the book. The reader is rewarded with fascinating fact after fact.
By the time I turned the last page, I had a new respect for the responsibility I take every time I start my car’s engine. I found the parts about the complexities and dangers of driving the most sobering; I’d bet most drivers have no concept of just how dicey the road can be. And maybe that’s for the best – otherwise most of us might stop driving altogether.
In the end, though “Traffic,” serves as a sweeping technical overview of the road that helps make sense of the chaos we routinely face, it’s essentially a story about human nature. The car is, after all, our roving home and therefore where many of our fears, dreams and neuroses play out, if usually in our subconsciousness.
If you pick it up, I suggest you buckle up and get ready for an eye-opening journey into your own mind that could give you new perspective to share with customers.
