Elizabeth R. (esjro) - , reviewed on 8/16/2008 + 947 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 8

Traffic is both vindicating and disheartening for people such as myself who fancy themselves excellent drivers. I found myself frequently quoting passages from Vanderbilt's lengthy tome to prove to my spouse that, as I had previously observed but had no empirical evidence to support, other people's poor driving habits endanger me and anyone else forced to share the roads with those idiots. However, as I read on I would inevitably get silent as he described other dangerous driving habits that I have (on rare occasions, of course) been guilty of.

Although road engineering and safety features in automobiles are discussed, Vanderbilt makes a convincing case that ultimately human behavior determines accident rates. Anytime engineers find a way to make driving safer or traffic flow more smoothly people will inevitably find a way to crash or cause congestion.

This book is a meticulously researched wake up call that every driver should read. Unfortunately, despite the fact that this book is creeping up the Times best seller list, many people will not. Although written in clear prose and filled with amusing person anecdotes, this book does require some concentration and dedication to get through. It is well researched (as the lengthy notes section at the end demonstrates), and consequently is quite long and contains a lot of numbers and statistics. It is doubtful that a person who cannot concentrate on the driving task will be able to make it through this book. Interested parties will be rewarded however... or at least will have some interesting things to discuss on their cell phones while driving to work.

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