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Title: Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us)
Author: Tom Vanderbilt
Genre: Pop science
Thingummies: 3.5
Synopsis: Social analysis of how we drive.
Thoughts: I think there's a downside to big media campaigns--by the time I read this book, I feel like I'd already read most of the interesting parts.
There's actually a lot here that's really quite interesting--from factoids about how roads designed to make cars safer make drivers more aggressive and therefore increase the damage when cars do crash to comparisons between different countries' driving cultures, there's a lot to unpack. I think part of why I was less impressed than I expected is just that Vanderbilt's tour of guest columns when this book came out turned out to be kind of spoiler-filled. So I already knew how long the white dashed lines on the highway are. (I'm not going to spoil it, but let's just say they're shockingly longer than you think they are.) If you didn't catch the promotional campaign, you'll probably enjoy the book more.
Author: Tom Vanderbilt
Genre: Pop science
Thingummies: 3.5
Synopsis: Social analysis of how we drive.
Thoughts: I think there's a downside to big media campaigns--by the time I read this book, I feel like I'd already read most of the interesting parts.
There's actually a lot here that's really quite interesting--from factoids about how roads designed to make cars safer make drivers more aggressive and therefore increase the damage when cars do crash to comparisons between different countries' driving cultures, there's a lot to unpack. I think part of why I was less impressed than I expected is just that Vanderbilt's tour of guest columns when this book came out turned out to be kind of spoiler-filled. So I already knew how long the white dashed lines on the highway are. (I'm not going to spoil it, but let's just say they're shockingly longer than you think they are.) If you didn't catch the promotional campaign, you'll probably enjoy the book more.
