Add Prime to get Fast, Free delivery

Kindle
$25.99

Available instantly

Hardcover
$89.99

Paperback
$34.60

$34.60

Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns

FREE delivery Monday, January 13 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35

Or fastest delivery Sunday, January 12. Order within 23 hrs 48 mins

Only 13 left in stock (more on the way).

$$34.60 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

Ships from

Amazon.com

Sold by

Amazon.com

Returns

30-day refund/replacement

Payment

Secure transaction

Add a gift receipt for easy returns

Other sellers on Amazon

New & Used (34) from $24.10 + $3.99 shipping

Image Unavailable

Image not available for
Color:

To view this video download Flash Player

Follow the author

Peter D. Norton

Follow

Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City (Inside Technology) Paperback – January 21, 2011

by Peter D. Norton (Author)

4.4 55 ratings

Part of: Inside Technology (63 books)

See all formats and editions

{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$34.60","priceAmount":34.60,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"34","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"60","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"bGTHiEgelVZKZ8Bx8Bt%2FaLAoup2TB3Ly2VYFSNjawzVZYD43AEez1WBbFyxDcBvo0J7nbqUSgpibNfqRdGYFMKy28bj2BNQOui9dwaKTtjfi%2FI1id8PxBt7FHRhsGI4jqlsGZO4alY5naoZiZILlqg%3D%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

The fight for the future of the city street between pedestrians, street railways, and promoters of the automobile between 1915 and 1930.

Before the advent of the automobile, users of city streets were diverse and included children at play and pedestrians at large. By 1930, most streets were primarily a motor thoroughfares where children did not belong and where pedestrians were condemned as “jaywalkers.” In Fighting Traffic, Peter Norton argues that to accommodate automobiles, the American city required not only a physical change but also a social one: before the city could be reconstructed for the sake of motorists, its streets had to be socially reconstructed as places where motorists belonged. It was not an evolution, he writes, but a bloody and sometimes violent revolution. Norton describes how street users struggled to define and redefine what streets were for. He examines developments in the crucial transitional years from the 1910s to the 1930s, uncovering a broad anti-automobile campaign that reviled motorists as “road hogs” or “speed demons” and cars as “juggernauts” or “death cars.” He considers the perspectives of all users—pedestrians, police (who had to become “traffic cops”), street railways, downtown businesses, traffic engineers (who often saw cars as the problem, not the solution), and automobile promoters. He finds that pedestrians and parents campaigned in moral terms, fighting for “justice.” Cities and downtown businesses tried to regulate traffic in the name of “efficiency.” Automotive interest groups, meanwhile, legitimized their claim to the streets by invoking “freedom”—a rhetorical stance of particular power in the United States. Fighting Traffic offers a new look at both the origins of the automotive city in America and how social groups shape technological change.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"In this exquisitely researched book, Norton guides us through the complex and passionate debates that cleared the street to make way for the car. These decisions made decades ago still shape our cities, so they are vital to understanding the future of the automobile, as well as its past."--Zachary M. Schrag, author of "The Great Society Subway: A History of the Washington Metro"

"This is rigorous scholarship the history of technology, and the history of the automobile in particular, will truly benefit from. Norton's fascinating, in-depth history shows the automotive revolution was fought in the streets, reshaping the use of public space and impacting perceptions for generations thereafter."--Gijs Mom, author of "The Electric Vehicle: Technology and Expectations in the Automobile Age"

"We forget that the search for mobility in urban areas has also led to a massive increase in mortality. "Fighting Traffic" makes the linkage between mobility and mortality explicit. This is a cutting edge work in mobility history and a major contribution to urban history."--Clay McShane, author of "Down the Asphalt Path"

About the Author

Peter D. Norton is Assistant Professor in the Department of Science, Technology, and Society at the University of Virginia.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ The MIT Press; SECOND PRINTING edition (January 21, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 396 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0262516128
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0262516129
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
Grade level ‏ : ‎ 12 and up
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.15 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.69 x 5.86 x 0.8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #732,560 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #381 in Automotive History (Books)
- #610 in Social Aspects of Technology
- #670 in History of Technology

Customer Reviews:
4.4 55 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Peter D. Norton

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Peter Norton is a historian of technology at the University of Virginia. He wrote Fighting Traffic to show how American city streets became places for cars instead of for people. He wrote Autonorama to show that autonomous vehicles won't solve our problems — and that fortunately we already have much better ways to achieve safe, healthful, inclusive, affordable, and sustainable mobility.

Customer reviews

55 global ratings

How customer reviews and ratings work

Review this product

Write a customer review

Customers say

Customers find the book provides a comprehensive history on public rights-of-way. They find it well-researched, with thorough documentation of 20th century enclosure. The book is organized and engaging, with interesting tidbits and parallels to current discussions.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Select to learn more

Scholarly content Pacing

10 customers mention "Scholarly content"7 positive3 negative

Customers find the book's content thorough and comprehensive. They say it provides a thorough documentation of 20th century enclosure. The book is well-organized and profoundly changes their understanding of history.

"This book is a well researched and documented history of how our public streets became the domain of motorized vehicles over significant and violent..." Read more

"Seldom have I read a book that so profoundly changed my understanding of history...." Read more

"Peter provides as comprehensive a history on public rights-of-way as any I've ever seen. His work is thoroughly-researched and very well-organized...." Read more

"This is a very thoroughly researched book. Almost a third of the last part of the book consists entirely of the author's footnotes...." Read more

3 customers mention "Pacing"3 positive0 negative

Customers find the book engaging with interesting details and parallels to current discussions.

"...in a more academic format so beware, but nonetheless it is still extremely engaging." Read more

"...It also a very readable and engaging book...." Read more

"...Fascinating parallels with the discussion taking place today." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Maxim Kovalsky
Incredible
Reviewed in the United States on May 18, 2024
Verified Purchase
This is one of those books that you read and never see the world the same after. You will never see a street, pedestrian, sign or a traffic light the same. Truly an incredible piece of work. It is written in a more academic format so beware, but nonetheless it is still extremely engaging.

Read more

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Report
Vince Graham
A thorough documentation of 20th century enclosure.
Reviewed in the United States on July 24, 2013
Verified Purchase
In 18th and 19th century Britain, Parliament passed a series of Enclosure Acts removing previously existing rights of local people to their use of the commons. In a dispassionate, straight forward manner, Dr. Norton reveals the story of how traditional rights to an individual's use of American streets(which comprise the largest portion of the public realm in any given city)were appropriated by "organized motordom" to benefit the growing ranks of automobile users. A masterful work of scholarship.

Though the author doesn't specifically state the connection (probably because he is so fair-minded and objective), the period covered (roughly 1910-39) corresponded with the rise of public relations. Norton's story provides a vivid example of how the new techniques of this field were used to manipulate public opinion and advance a political agenda. Fascinating! Highly recommend, especially for those working on pedestrian/bicycle accessibility, transit issues, architects, engineers, and urban designers, or anyone who simply loves cities.

Read more

7 people found this helpful

Helpful

Report
A M
Too long and repetitive
Reviewed in the United States on July 19, 2024
Verified Purchase
The book reviews the political disputes that occurred while traffic laws were being established in the USA at the beginning of the 20th century. It is too long. It presents an idea and then lists long quotations of people who supported this idea. It only discusses the USA and ignores that similar traffic laws were adopted in Europe during the same period.

Read more

Helpful

Report
John Forester
Forgotten war against pedestrians
Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2015
Verified Purchase
Peter Norton describes a long-forgotten aspect of the appearance of mass motoring in America, the war between motorists and pedestrians. When neither motorists nor pedestrians had significant rules, the appearance of a road vehicle that went faster than ever before resulted in pedestrian deaths. These produced strong anti-motoring emotions, furthered by cartoons of young mothers and innocent children murdered by speeding cars. When this produced proposed legislation for car governors to limit possible speed to 25 mph or so, everywhere, Motordom found itself united. It united against pedestrians on streets, and for highways without pedestrians. By 1940 it had won these battles, with pedestrians limited to sidewalks and crosswalks of normal streets, and freeways accepted for high-speed travel. We achieved this result by producing the rules of the road, that combine rules for drivers of wheeled vehicles on roadways and rules for pedestrians on sidewalks and crosswalks into one set of reasonably equitable conforming rules. As a child cyclist in London, UK, of the 1930s, arriving in California in 1940, I never questioned the principle of roadways for wheels and sidewalks for feet, the battle had been forgotten.
American cyclists should benefit from that principle, but American Motordom managed to get cyclists classified with pedestrians instead of drivers, which created the nasty legal situation of bicyclists under American traffic law. And now anti-motoring bicycle advocates are breaking that principle by advocating non-traveling uses for roadways. The reasons for the war between motorists and pedestrians should again be remembered, with the proper division of street users into those on wheels and those on feet. Norton's book revives that history.
My short criticism is that Norton has not properly discussed the creation and role of traffic rules in achieving our standard of reasonably safe operation.

Read more

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Report
Planner
This book is a well researched and documented history of ...
Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2018
Verified Purchase
This book is a well researched and documented history of how our public streets became the domain of motorized vehicles over significant and violent opposition. It also a very readable and engaging book. It would surprise most Americans to learn how pedestrians,cyclists, and other non-motorized roadway users were criminalized for the benefit of the wealthy minority that could afford cars.

Read more

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Report

Top reviews from other countries

J. adams
Fighting traffic the next battle
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 9, 2017
Verified Purchase
Fighting traffic is an instructive account of the social reconstruction of American cities that led to their domination by motordom – the powerful collective of interests dedicated clearing a path for the car. The most important period in the rise of motordom was the 1920s. Norton charts this transformation in terms of the insults that the competitors for road space traded with each other: motorists became “joy riders”, “road hogs” and “speed demons”, and their machines “juggernauts” and “death cars”, while pedestrians became “jaywalkers” and street cars became “traffic obstructions”. Norton explains how the road hogs won, how roads that were previously shared spaces were taken over by the car.
He attributes this victory to motordom’s awareness of the importance of shaping attitudes, the impressive resources that they had available to apply to this task, and their ultimate success in establishing that urban roads were, almost exclusively, for cars. By 1930 the battle had been won: “most street users agreed that most streets were chiefly motor thoroughfares.”
“Motordom”, Norton notes, “had effective rhetorical weapons, growing national organization, a favourable political climate, substantial wealth, and the sympathy of a growing minority of city motorists. By 1930, with these assets, motordom had redefined city streets.”
This is how he accounts for the dramatic change in attitudes, over a short space of time, about who should have the right of way on American streets: “From American ideals of political and economic freedom, motordom fashioned the rhetorical lever it needed. In these terms, motorists, though a minority, had rights that protected their choice of mode from intrusive restrictions. Their driving also constituted a demand for street space, which, like other demands in a free market, was not a matter for expert scrutiny.”
Norton’s account is not of mere historical interest. Today the five most valuable companies in the world – Apple, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook – plus Tesla and Uber and all the major traditional car manufacturers, are promoting driverless cars. And they promise to reopen the argument over who should have the right of way on city streets.
They boast that their cars will able to respond with extreme deference to all pedestrians, cyclists and children encountered in the street, thereby liberating them to enjoy their pre-motordom freedom to venture safely into the road. But they concede that if this freedom were widely exercised in dense urban areas motor traffic would grind to a halt. So, who will command the streets in dense urban areas? The promoters of driverless cars are also the world’s preeminent shapers of public opinion.
PS A sixth star for clear and persuasive writing.

Read more
Report
Arash Amiri
One of the best books on the history of traffic in the US that I could find.
Reviewed in Germany on August 5, 2016
Verified Purchase
It is short (the last third of it is pretty much all just references), but it is very informative. I learned a lot about the history of jaywalking (how it was constructed by the car lobby) and also a lot about the lobbying practices of the car companies.

Very insightful if you like to know more about how our cities became what they are today.

Read more
Report
Philipp Shahinfar
A must read for all interested in transportation and the history of transportation
Reviewed in Germany on April 19, 2021
Verified Purchase
Very Interesting book. Gives you insights about the strong interdependences between city development and automobiles and the history of this development.
Very recommendable!

Read more
Report
Jeanne B.
Uninteresting
Reviewed in Germany on October 9, 2014
Verified Purchase
This seemed to me to be a topic that could be very interesting, and yet the book managed to say very little (what little it did say it repeated over and over again). I couldn't get through it.

Read more
Report

See more reviews

Amazon Prime Free Trial

Return this item for free

Image Unavailable

Follow the author