Traffic

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

By: Tom Vanderbilt

Narrated by: Marc Cashman

Length: 13 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's summary

Would you be surprised that road rage can be good for society? That most crashes happen on sunny, dry days? Or that you can gauge a nation’s driving behavior by its levels of corruption? These are only a few of the remarkable dynamics that Tom Vanderbilt explores in this fascinating tour through the mysteries of the road.

Based on exhaustive research and interviews with driving experts and traffic officials around the globe, Traffic gets under the hood of the everyday activity of driving to uncover the surprisingly complex web of physical, psychological, and technical factors that explain how traffic works, why we drive the way we do, and what our driving says about us. Vanderbilt examines the perceptual limits and cognitive underpinnings that make us worse drivers than we think we are. As Vanderbilt shows, driving is a provocatively revealing prism for examining how our minds work and the ways in which we interact with one another.

Ultimately, Traffic is about more than driving: it’s about human nature. This audiobook will change the way we see ourselves and the world around us. And who knows? It may even make us better drivers.

©2008 Tom Vanderbilt (P)2008 Books on Tape

Traffic really moves.

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Traffic. it gave me a lot of perspective about how I drive and why others might be driving the way they do. An informative and fun read.

Fascinating

This is a book about human nature wrapped in the bacon strips of purposeful motion. You do need to be interested in how and why things work, but if you are, this book is chock full of delicious tidbits that make you really want to send it to your local DoT. Regardless, there are a multitude of those moments when you either see yourself or someone you know (or if you're listening on the road, someone you're watching). This book should be mandatory reading in every drivers' ed class.

Everyone needs to read/listen to this book

I had previously read this book when it came out and loved it. I wanted to revisit it the other day, but I'm not a huge reader. This was the perfect medium. Only gripe is the narrator's voice, it can be a bit monotone.

surprisingly great

I never knew traffic could be so interesting! My brother suggested this book, but he's weird, so I was skeptical. Despite my hesitation, it was really fantastic, delving into more psychology and sociology than I had expected. Thank god for nerds who can make topics so interesting.

Interesting

Would you listen to Traffic again? Why?

No, there were a couple interesting ideas, but some of the story was tedious to get through.

What did you like best about this story?

Stats and references were interesting, learned a lot about traffic around the world.

What does Marc Cashman bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Good job reading, no issues there.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No

Excellent Book but in Need of Updating

I started this book without knowing the original publication date. Several chapters in, it suddenly occurred to me that some of the topics he was discussing were based upon data from the turn of the century. He does not provide a date or even year for the studies he cites. For example, Vanderbilt spends considerable space to the work of Sebastian Thrun at Stanford, who led his team to victory in the DARPA self-driving vehicle Grand Challenge. That was foundational work for self-driving, but is old hat now. Waymo and Tesla, among others, have learned much beyond that and have taken autonomous driving to a whole different level. Many, many more studies of traffic dynamics have been performed since 2008 and have provided a much better database of knowledge regarding why humans behind the wheel behave the way they do. Just search YouTube for a host of videos on what is known now.

There is simply so much more to the topic of "traffic" now, which isn't surprising.

Still, this book provides a nice foundation for understanding this subject and is delivered in a very interesting manner. I would recommend it for anyone seeking to learn about humans and driving, but would seekk out more to update yourself on current knowledge.

great listen with good narraration

What made the experience of listening to Traffic the most enjoyable?

this is one of those books where you expect to know a lot of the answers ahead of time and then the author delivers a lot of information that you didn't realize you cared about until he says it.

What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?

lots of examples that are research driven.

What about Marc Cashman’s performance did you like?

Marc Cashman does an excellent job, i never got bored with his narration style and look forward to more books with his narration.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

yes, it was very captivating and much more interesting than i was anticipating. i listened to it as a recommendation from a friend and it exceeded my expectations.

Still relevant

Great book that has also made me a safer driver.

Audio version would have been much better with paused to clarify when changing to new topics.

Driving Towards Traffic

"Traffic" freaked me out. I knew that 40,000 people died each year on our roads. And I knew that a car accident was the most likely way that trauma would encroach into my world. Vanderbilt gives me lots more things to worry about (like Dr's have the 2nd highest accident rate, pick-up trucks are dangerous to everyone else, new cars have higher accident rates then older cars, and intersections are bad news for bikers, runners, and drivers.

This is a book I'd like my girls to read as a prerequisite to getting their license (and I'll install the driver cam that Vanderbilt writes about being effective in teaching young drivers defensive skills).

Read the book. Slow down on the roads.

Interesting Read

This book does have a lot of statistics but it organizes them around certain themes to make them more comprehensible. I found it very interesting. It made me look at driving differently. Hopefully it made me a better driver. Certainty a better educated one. I thought the narration was very good.