Book review - Traffic: Why we drive the way we do (and what it says about us)

A book about driving, not cycling - hence the post under Misc. - but it looks pretty good and says some interesting things about road users ("more Americans die on the road each month than in 9/11, so where's the war on driving?").

Review here.

Tom Vanderbilt
TRAFFIC
Why we drive the way we do (and what it says about us)
416pp. Allen Lane. £20.
978 0 7139 9931 4
US: Knopf. $29.95. 978 0 307 39772 7

"In Finland, road penalties are matched to income. Hence, one businessman incurred a $71,400 fine for driving at 43 miles per hour in a 25 mile-per-hour zone. Unsurprisingly, the moralizing Nordics offer the world’s safest driving environment. From this perspective, a global prescription seems obvious: smaller roads, fewer markings, more punitive laws."

this looks like a great book

It got a good review from Mikael Colville-Andersen over on his Copehagenize site, where he promotes the idea of making the world like Copenhagen - about bikes....:-)

Traffic penalties are supposedly based on income over here in the UK - except fixed penalties of course!

Who the hell wants to read a book on why people drive the cars the way they do?

That has surely got to be one of the most boring books ever written.

Who the hell wants to read a book on why people drive the cars the way they do?

That has surely got to be one of the most boring books ever written.

This from the man who has Home Alone, Bridget Jones' Diary and Love, Actually in his top Christmas Films list.

Don't be hating on the Bridget..

I read an abstract of it over the summer in a paper. It was quite interesting. Unfortunately many of the ideas would never be implemented over here as they would be politically unpopular even though I think people would actually like them once they saw them in action.

copenhagenize links through to this about Elle Mcpherson,.....if that piques your interest a bit more Chug