Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)
Author:
Genre: Nonfiction
Book Type: Hardcover
Author:
Genre: Nonfiction
Book Type: Hardcover
Although this is a fascinating and very educational book, it was not always an easy read. But it was a very worthwhile read. The author goes into great detail about many subjects we all thought were true, but aren't. As such, you sometimes have to read carefully. While listed as 402 pages long, there are only 286 pages of text. Most of the rest is footnotes and citations.
Basically, the book covers two major areas. First, many of the safety features added to road and cars often make driving more dangerous. And he provides the evidence from numerous studies to prove this. Second, many of the things most of us believe about our driving habits, choices of vehicles and safety concerns are wrong. For example, SUVs are not safer than smaller cars. In fact, they are involved in more accidents. Here are just some of the tidbits from the book:
In the New York City of 1867, horses were killing four pedestrians a week, a bit higher than today's rate of traffic fatalities.
The farther away things are, like an approaching car, the worse we are at estimating distance. But we still pass cars ahead of us which are actually doing the speed limit.
People 'foraging' for parking spaces in a big lot seldom choose the best spot. The author shows you how to do so.
The expensive cars we buy spend 95 percent of their time parked. This results in the economic and environmental high cost of 'free parking.' And, for some reason, banks with drive-up windows are required to have more parking spaces than banks without.
Intersections are crash-magnets. Thirty percent of all road crashes occur at intersections. At a four-way intersection there 56 danger points. Of these, 32 are for vehicles and 24 are for pedestrians. Whereas, round-abouts only have a total of 16, but we believe they are more dangerous than intersections.
Finland has one of the safest set of roads in the world. In that country, traffic fines are based on your income. One rich Finn was fined $71,400 for doing 43 mph in a 25-mph zone. And corruption (bribes to traffic police) plays a role too. When Mexico City replaced all it male traffic cops with females, the number of tickets issued rose by 300% and drivers started obeying traffic laws.
Everyone knows United Nation diplomats in New York City are exempt from traffic tickets. So much so that between 1997 and 2002, they accumulated 150,000 tickets. But in London, England, the largest number of ignored traffic tickets are by diplomats from the U.S. embassy.
Unlike the general perception, most traffic accident between cars and trucks are caused by the car drivers. Which is really stupid, as guess which drivers are killed the most.
If you drive an average of 15,500 miles per year, and many American do, there is a roughly one in 100 chance you'll die in a fatal car crash over a lifetime of 50 of driving. But we often don't obey traffic laws. Plus more children are killed in cars while being driven to school than those who walk there.
If you crash at 50 mph, you are 15 times more likely to die than in a crash at 25 mph. Yet most of us speed.
We often buy pickup trucks because they are bigger and therefore safer. Yet more people in the U.S. die in pickup trucks per million vehicles registered than in any other kind of vehicle.
A 1994 report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration concluded that the overall effect of Anti-lock Braking Systems on crashes---fatal and otherwise---was 'close to zero.'
In the town I live in, I sometimes think I'm the only one obeying the speed limits. When I am doing so in a 45-mph-zone, cars are passing me like I'm doing 25 mph. And some of those cars are pulling trailers. Since 9/11, to when this book was published in 2008, no one in the U.S. was killed by a terrorist. Yet traffic police are being pulled off the streets to combat terrorism. Meanwhile, on the average, 40,000 Americans are killed in traffic accidents every year. And hundreds of thousands are injured, often seriously. The economic cost to our society is beyond calculation. Yet, if strict traffic laws were mandated, we would rise up, protest and even vote our leaders out of office. Go figure.
Basically, the book covers two major areas. First, many of the safety features added to road and cars often make driving more dangerous. And he provides the evidence from numerous studies to prove this. Second, many of the things most of us believe about our driving habits, choices of vehicles and safety concerns are wrong. For example, SUVs are not safer than smaller cars. In fact, they are involved in more accidents. Here are just some of the tidbits from the book:
In the New York City of 1867, horses were killing four pedestrians a week, a bit higher than today's rate of traffic fatalities.
The farther away things are, like an approaching car, the worse we are at estimating distance. But we still pass cars ahead of us which are actually doing the speed limit.
People 'foraging' for parking spaces in a big lot seldom choose the best spot. The author shows you how to do so.
The expensive cars we buy spend 95 percent of their time parked. This results in the economic and environmental high cost of 'free parking.' And, for some reason, banks with drive-up windows are required to have more parking spaces than banks without.
Intersections are crash-magnets. Thirty percent of all road crashes occur at intersections. At a four-way intersection there 56 danger points. Of these, 32 are for vehicles and 24 are for pedestrians. Whereas, round-abouts only have a total of 16, but we believe they are more dangerous than intersections.
Finland has one of the safest set of roads in the world. In that country, traffic fines are based on your income. One rich Finn was fined $71,400 for doing 43 mph in a 25-mph zone. And corruption (bribes to traffic police) plays a role too. When Mexico City replaced all it male traffic cops with females, the number of tickets issued rose by 300% and drivers started obeying traffic laws.
Everyone knows United Nation diplomats in New York City are exempt from traffic tickets. So much so that between 1997 and 2002, they accumulated 150,000 tickets. But in London, England, the largest number of ignored traffic tickets are by diplomats from the U.S. embassy.
Unlike the general perception, most traffic accident between cars and trucks are caused by the car drivers. Which is really stupid, as guess which drivers are killed the most.
If you drive an average of 15,500 miles per year, and many American do, there is a roughly one in 100 chance you'll die in a fatal car crash over a lifetime of 50 of driving. But we often don't obey traffic laws. Plus more children are killed in cars while being driven to school than those who walk there.
If you crash at 50 mph, you are 15 times more likely to die than in a crash at 25 mph. Yet most of us speed.
We often buy pickup trucks because they are bigger and therefore safer. Yet more people in the U.S. die in pickup trucks per million vehicles registered than in any other kind of vehicle.
A 1994 report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration concluded that the overall effect of Anti-lock Braking Systems on crashes---fatal and otherwise---was 'close to zero.'
In the town I live in, I sometimes think I'm the only one obeying the speed limits. When I am doing so in a 45-mph-zone, cars are passing me like I'm doing 25 mph. And some of those cars are pulling trailers. Since 9/11, to when this book was published in 2008, no one in the U.S. was killed by a terrorist. Yet traffic police are being pulled off the streets to combat terrorism. Meanwhile, on the average, 40,000 Americans are killed in traffic accidents every year. And hundreds of thousands are injured, often seriously. The economic cost to our society is beyond calculation. Yet, if strict traffic laws were mandated, we would rise up, protest and even vote our leaders out of office. Go figure.
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