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

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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.

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.

Driving, at least in America, is an activity that is oddly personal. Our cars, the way we drive, how we handle bad traffic, are so much a part of ourselves, that we bristle, or worse, when someone criticizes our choice of car, the way we drive, or our behavior in traffic.

When I read several (professional) reviews of Traffic, it was hard to believe that they were all about the same book. The reviews seemed to reflect the personalities, the insecurities, the preferences of the reviewers. I was learning more about the reviewers than about the book. Then when I'd read the book, I found that the parts that stuck with me had not been mentioned in any of the reviews I'd seen.

For instance, I was fascinated to read about "Sabbath Timing" of traffic lights at some 75 Los Angeles intersections. From sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday every week, and on certain holidays, they are programmed to flash the walk signal every signal rotation, whether anyone presses the button or not. This is so the orthodox Jews in those neighborhoods cross the streets without pressing the button, which would be against the rule not to use any machines. The city planners considered an alternate solution that would use sensors to detect if a pedestrian was waiting to cross the street, but consultations with local rabbis determined that that would not be in keeping with the restriction.

Another tidbit: all drivers believe they are better than average. Not surprising actually, but still interesting.

A factoid that applies to more than just traffic: most people prefer one long line rather than many short lines, such as that at Wendy's vs. the lines at McDonald's, even if the wait is longer with the long line. We like the "social justice" of the single line, in which no one can pick the "right" line and be served ahead of those who waited longer in the slower lines.

Traffic is a thoroughly-researched book with lots of data and over a hundred pages of end notes and index. Vanderbilt knows his traffic. But so do we. So here are my own observations about traffic.

I spent many years commuting to work in the Bay Area, a 140-mile round trip, on several different shifts, and including right after the Loma Prieta Earthquake, when the Bay Bridge, a critical portion of my commute, was being repaired after a large section fell into the Bay. In all the years spent commuting, the traffic did not strike me as being especially idiosyncratic. It was awful and I hated it, but it seemed no worse or better than most places.

Las Vegas, on the other hand, is a different kettle of fish. The drivers here have a real "double or nothing" mentality. I quickly learned to hurry through all yellow lights and to check the rear view mirror before stopping at red lights. The alternative was to be rear-ended.

Avoid the temptation (difficult in Las Vegas) to make quick starts when the light turns green. Wait for at least two more cars to go through the intersection and check to see if anyone else is going to run the red. Then go. Jaywalking is very common, and so are accidents resulting from jaywalking.

In spite of all this, I continue to be surprised that school zone speed limits are religiously observed. Even at the school zone on a main street that covers several blocks, the traffic slows to 15 mph and no one cheats. I never see any police cars skulking in the vicinity, so I can't explain this apparent anomaly. The substandard school system seems to rule out the possibility that Las Vegans care more about the welfare of their children than do other communities. It's just one of those local quirks, I guess.

The first time we went to Rome, I fell in love. With the traffic. It was wild, uncontrolled, anarchic, insane! After a few minutes, it seemed less so. In fact, it was beautiful. Everyone was moving in a synchronized way, ignoring signs, signals, crosswalks, but completely aware of the other cars and the pedestrians. Unlike in North America, the Romans did not come to a stop unless absolutely necessary, and then for as short a time as possible. We learned, as every visitor to Rome does, that pedestrians wait for a small break in the traffic, stride confidently into the street, making eye contact or appearing stylishly aloof, your choice, but moving at a constant pace across the street. Traffic will slow slightly, move around you, and you will be incorporated into the flow. You must do what is expected, no sudden moves, no stopping in the middle of the street.

Yes, most of the drivers are driving one-handed, telefonino in the other hand. But they are all aware of the traffic around them. Here, we stare straight ahead in our individual cocoons, passive-aggressively making the other guy go around us when we refuse to acknowledge his presence.

Traffic is the perfect book to listen to while in traffic.

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.

You're a bad driver. But so am I. In fact, one of the key ideas in Tom Vanderbilt's Traffic is that it is almost impossible not be a bad driver. There are too many things that need to be done and the level of concentration to be good is hard to maintain (of course, there are degrees of badness). Even if you leave the radio off, put the cell phone away and focus only on driving, it is difficult to keep that focus.

Traffic deals with our behavior in Traffic and why we act as we do. A lack of personal contact can make a person more aggressive; people often assess risk poorly and so on. An example with poor risk assessment is driving versus flying. Time and again, we hear that flying is safer than driving, yet most people instinctively feel the opposite, often because they at least have control over how they drive.

The most interesting paradox that Vanderbilt discusses is that we are typically at the most risk of accident in "safe" situations and safer in the risky situations. When people drive cars with great safety features, or are on nice straight highways, they tend to offset these safeties by behaving more dangerously (such as driving faster). On the other hand, if you're on a winding mountain road, you will take things slower, reducing your risk.

I am only scratching the surface with what is covered in this very interesting book. While in the middle of reading it, I was stuck in a traffic jam. I can't say that the book made me enjoy the experience more (or hate it less), but at least I got a better understanding as to why it happens. You may hate traffic, but you should enjoy Traffic.

I spend a lot of time driving, which doesn't make me a better driver but it does give me time to witness a lot of dumb things that people do while driving their cars; talking on cell phones, texting, reading the newspaper, applying makeup, shaving, and, one time, I actually saw a person using his laptop while driving. I am not without blame, I have been guilty of talking on the cell phone while driving. However, I credit Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do, by Tom Vanderbilt, of breaking me of that habit. You may think that you are a good driver, but this book will illustrate just how poorly each of us drive, as it examines not just traffic, but the sociology and psychology of driving. Who knows, you may become a better driver because of it.

Contents: Prologue; Why Does The Other Lane Always Seem Faster? How Traffic Messes with Our Heads; Why You're Not as Good a Driver as You Think You Are; How Our Eyes and Minds Betray Us on the Road; Why Ants Don't Get Into Traffic Jams (and Humans Do): On Cooperation as a Cure for Congestion; Why Women Cause More Congestion Than Men (and Other Secrets of Traffic); Why More Roads Lead to More Traffic (and What to Do About It); When Dangerous Roads are Safer; How Traffic Explains the World: On Driving With a Local Accent; 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; Epilogue: Driving Lessons; Acknowledgements; Notes; Index

Exhaustively researched (over 100 pages of Notes) but written in a conversational, easy style, Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do is a fascinating look at something we probably take for granted but curse every day. Loaded with revelations, for example, you are not as good a driver as you think you are, it may not change the way that you drive but it will alter your perceptions of traffic. Vanderbilt doesn't focus solely on traffic, but also on how and where we park, illusions we encounter on the streets, and other interesting aspects of our life with cars. While focusing on American traffic, he also compares and contrasts it with European and Indian traffic norms. Unbeknownst to me prior to reading this book, Germans do not place bumper stickers or those oval "look where I've been" announcements (the most famous of those is OBX). He makes a point that if another driver honks their horn or displays some aggressive behavior toward you, it may actually be directed at your automobile's stickers.

The most important thing I took away from the book is that in a car, there is no feedback loop. You may think that you are a good driver, it's been a while since you had a speeding ticket or you haven't been in an accident, but without a third party, you really aren't aware that you are tailgating, you took a curve too fast, or you need to work on your braking distances. What you do know is that there are a lot of morons on the road. Until you have passengers who are not quiet when things appear wrong. Then, you lash out at them, when in reality they are giving you important feedback on your driving skills. Finally, while I abhor the legislators who want to ban cell phone use in cars, I have a much better understanding of the hazards of using a cell phone (with or without "hands free") while driving. I also appreciate Vanderbilt's comments on all technological options now found in most cars, like GPS. They all take your attention away from the road and your driving.

Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do may not make you a better driver, but it should raise your awareness and make you a more cooperative one.

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.

While reading this book, I often proclaimed aloud (things like "wow" or "aha") and had moments of traffic clarity. The book, without preaching at all, opened up lanes of awareness in my mind regarding my own driving behaviors and how my own perceptions of myself as a driver are skewed by my limitations of vision and ego. It kind of reads like a combination social commentary/help manual/psychology book written in a witty, lively style. I was rarely bored and often enlightened.

There are many sparkling gems in this book that other reviewers have done so well at describing. I do want to point out a glaring "inconvenience." Note that there are 288 pages of text in this 400-plus page book. The rest is endnotes. The endnotes are very interesting pieces of information either expanding on areas of text or buttressing it. This would have been more suited to a footnotes organization style, because they refer to specific passages and pages. This made it kind of laborious to absorb. It is tedious to read hundreds of bits of info referring to specific pages and paragraphs long after finishing the entire text of the book.

This was a big dud by the editor that compelled me to deduct a star because it diminished my reading experience. You finish after 288 pages and are thrust into 100 pages of info with no context! If I had known this before reading, it would have helped me to enjoy the book more thoroughly.

I wrote this review partly as a heads up to other readers who may purchase this book. Your reading experience will improve if you know in advance that every page of text has endnotes starting on page 293 (after acknowledgments).

Traffic is a great concept for a book but gets bogged down in too many details and studies, while being written in a style that doesn't flow properly. Information is tossed at the reader often without continuity of thought. The end result is a grab-bag of facts that often leads the author to improper conclusions.

It's nice that someone tackled the subject of automobile traffic. The concepts presented range from practical advice such as how to merge to a proposal of a national system to monitor all drivers! Chapters often lack fluidity and information is presented in a way that makes the book a bit difficult to read. And then the 400-page book ends early (after 286 pages) leaving over 100 pages of notes and acknowledgements!

The numbers he presents are often not placed in proper perspective. For example, he says that construction zones are more dangerous for drivers than for workers because 85% of the injuries happen to car passengers. But what he leaves out is that there are a lot more people in cars going through construction zones than there are workers, so maybe 99% of the people at a construction site are in cars and only 1% are workers--which means that if 15% of the injuries are to crew members, then their danger level is much higher than expected! It is the failure to put the studies in proper perspective that keeps the book from having the impact it should.

Another problem is the author's east coast perspective. His New York City viewpoint is skewed and differs from the experiences of 95% of the population. More examples from the average driver's experience would have helped.

There are some thoughful sections and some funny parts--but overall it could have used more rewriting and editing in order to present the information in an easy-to-read manner.

This is an interesting book from cover to cover. Its breezy writing makes it an easy read. Author Tom Vanderbilt's research is exhaustive and impressive. Anyone reading Traffic will learn maybe more than they want about human nature. It changed me from an early merger to a late one. From here on out, I'm ignoring those dirty looks. It just means the drivers haven't read this book yet.

Why do people behave they way they do when they drive? The reasons are complex and fascinating. This book examines the history of driving, traffic in other countries, bumperstickers, the physiology of driving and much, much more. Vanderbilt includes references as varied as Cheers, Crash, Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, The Matrix, Seinfeld and the 1950 Walt Disney short Motor Mania.

Traffic explores non-automotive traffic dilemmas as well. Disney has had to manage the flow of people at its theme parks since they opened Disneyland in the 1950s. Sometimes the solutions are counterintuitive. Disney learned that REMOVING one of its monorails instead of adding one actually increases the speed people can travel to the park. This is because each train has a buffer zone in front of it, for safety; as a monorail nears another one, it has to slow down or stop. Taking a train out means they all move faster.

Vanderbilt calls the FastPass system at the Disney parks the "ultimate solution" in managing traffic to the most popular rides. "Rather than waiting in line, the user waits in a 'virtual queue,' in time rather than space, and can in the meantime move on to other, less crowded rides." I can vouch for the FastPass system myself as a Disney travel guide writer; I never, ever wait in line for the big rides. FastPass has changed the way people can experience Disney parks.

The clever cover shows a squiggly arrow traffic sign that has been coated to be reflective, like a real traffic sign is. Under the dust jacket the book is black with a yellow spine.

Here's the chapter list:

Prologue: Why I Became a Late Merger (and Why You Should Too)
1. Why Does the Other Lane Always Seem Faster? How Traffic Messes with Our Heads
* Shut Up, I Can't Hear You: Anonymity, Aggression, and the Problems of Communicating While Driving
* Are You Lookin' at Me? Eye Contact, Stereotypes, and Social Interaction on the Road
* Waiting in Line, Waiting in Traffic: Why the Other Lane Always Moves Faster
* Postscript: And Now, the Secrets of Late Merging Revealed
2. Why You're Not as Good a Driver as You Think You Are
* If Driving Is So Easy, Why Is It So Hard for a Robot? What Teaching Machines to Drive Teaches Us About Driving
* How's My Driving? How the Hell Should I Know? Why Lack of Feedback Fails Us on the Road
3. How Our Eyes and Minds Betray Us on the Road
* Keep Your Mind on the Road: Why It's So Hard to Pay Attention in Traffic
* Objects in Traffic Are More Complicated Than They Appear: How Our Driving Eyes Deceive Us
4. Why Ants Don't Get into Traffic Jams (and Humans Do): On Cooperation as a Cure for Congestion
* Meet the World's Best Commuter: What We Can Learn from Ants, Locusts, and Crickets
* Playing God In Los Angeles
* When Slower Is Faster, or How the Few Defeat the Many: Traffic Flow and Human Nature
5. Why Women Cause More Congestion Than Men (and Other Secrets of Traffic)
* Who Are All These People? The Psychology of Commuting
* The Parking Problem: Why We Are Inefficient Parkers and How This Causes Congestion
6. Why More Roads Lead to More Traffic (and What to Do About It)
* The Selfish Commuter
* A Few Mickey Mouse Solutions to the Traffic Problem
7. When Dangerous Roads are Safer
* The Highway Conundrum: How Drivers Adapt to the Road They See
* The Trouble with Traffic Signs -- and How Getting Rid of Them Can Make Things Better for Everyone
* Forgiving Roads or Permissive Roads? The Fatal Flaws of Traffic Engineering
8. How Traffic Explains the World: On Driving with a Local Accent
* "Good Brakes, Good Horn, Good Luck": Plunging into the Maelstrom of Delhi Traffic
* Why New Yorkers Jaywalk (and Why They Don't in Copenhagen): Traffic as Culture
* Danger: Corruption Ahead -- the Secret Indicator of Crazy Traffic
9. 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
* Semiconscious Fear: How We Misunderstand the Risks of the Road
* Should I Stay or Should I Go? Why Risk on the Road Is So Complicated
* The Risks of Safety
Epilogue: Driving Lessons