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Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do
And the subtitle is "(and What It Says About Us)". The author is Tom Vanderbilt and here is the Amazon link. I wrote the following blurb for it:
"Everyone who drives--and many people who don't--should read this book. It is a psychology book, a popular science book, and a how-to-save-your-life manual, all rolled into one. I found it gripping and fascinating from the very beginning to the very end."
It's out in July and so far it is one of the best popular social science books of the year.
I also liked the article on traffic -- John Staddon's "Distracting Miss Daisy" -- in the latest Atlantic Monthly. It had these two good sentences:
Paradoxically, almost every new sign put up in the U.S. probably makes drivers a little safer on the stretch of road it guards. But collectively, the forests of signs along American roadways, and the multitude of rules to look out for, are quite deadly.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on June 10, 2008 at 02:21 PM in Books | Permalink
Comments
Here's a link to the Staddon article:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/traffic
My favorite sentence is: "I’ve given several talks on traffic in the U.S. and have always found members of the audience to be highly skeptical that the U.K. traffic system could possibly be safer than the one on this side of the Atlantic."
Posted by: Seth Roberts at Jun 10, 2008 3:09:47 PM
While I agree that too much signage and too many rules are distracting and harmful, it is possible to err in the opposite direction. For examples, look at the roads in any developing country (India and China come to mind). Poor signage and unenforced traffic laws, combined with an exponentially increasing number of vehicles has lead to an epidemic to traffic deaths. Indeed, the problem of traffic deaths has become as bad as malaria in the developing world.
I'd argue the reason the UK and European road systems are safer is because far fewer people (proportionally) drive on a regular basis over there.
Posted by: quanticle at Jun 10, 2008 3:23:50 PM
Pulling from my experiences and my friends' experiences in India, one of the biggest factors leading to traffic problems in India is the concept of driving in lanes. There is no education or enforcement of that concept at all. Driving in any city in India is pretty much a free-for-all that leads many down the path of religion, since it can only be through divine providence that they could have survived any day.
Posted by: sunbomb at Jun 10, 2008 3:36:51 PM
The last quote is nothing new. When I was an undergrad at UC Irvine (1988-1992), I recall reading an interview in the OC Register with a city traffic planner who explained why he had sparse signage and uniform speed limits on the roads. Lots of signs and continual changes in speed limits confused drivers. I wish I could find that article now, because in retrospect, it was one of the most influential articles on my personal software design philosophy. 20 years and many tens of thousands of new people later, Irvine's street signage still seems refreshingly simple to me when I drive through that city.
Posted by: Brad Hutchings at Jun 10, 2008 4:06:57 PM
Fantastic, I can't wait to read the book.
Does Tom happen to touch on why fuel efficiency appears to be declining (even faster now that prices are up)?
Does he agree with you that horns are too offensive to use in a campaign to improve effiency?
Posted by: aaron at Jun 10, 2008 4:08:51 PM
Oh, this reminds me. I'll never take any attempt at cap and trade or carbon taxes seriously until after politicians handle the much simpler (cheaper and effective) problem of traffic management first.
If people really cared about emissions from driving, they'd demand their communities adjust speedlimits, time traffic light properly, and remove stopsigns where possible. And communities that do this would sue ones that don't.
Posted by: aaron at Jun 10, 2008 4:40:18 PM
After reading the Staddon article, it occurs to me that the UK also has a much lower murder rate along with a much simpler prohibition on handguns. If Staddon's conclusion is that we should change to the British system for traffic regulation, why shouldn't we change to the British system for handgun regulation? Same logic, right?
And what about the Canadians?
And if Staddon is right about psychological factors undercutting safety attempts, then it doesn't matter what signage system or traffic regulating system we use: we will get the same result. So why would he think the British system would be better in the US then?
Posted by: Mike Huben at Jun 10, 2008 4:45:31 PM
I am willing to tolerate a marginally higher risk of accidents in exchange for not having to be totally on my guard all the time.
Posted by: Robert Olson at Jun 10, 2008 6:29:21 PM
InTransition blog reports similar findings as the Atlantic article.
Best,
D
Posted by: Dano at Jun 10, 2008 6:31:03 PM
Interesting graph showing road deaths per mile over time. I don't think anyone who's driven in Paris would be surprised by the high French death rates, although the Japanese rate surprised me.
Posted by: jonm at Jun 10, 2008 7:47:08 PM
here it is ...
http://www.streetsblog.org/2007/07/23/safety-first-true-once-but-us-now-lags-in-road-deaths/
Posted by: jonm at Jun 10, 2008 7:47:57 PM
Aaron asked
"Does Tom happen to touch on why fuel efficiency appears to be declining (even faster now that prices are up)?"
I believe I know the answer to this, based on past empirical work on consumer response to the oil price shocks of the 1970s.
Berry, Levinsohn, and Pakes (AER 1993) estimated demand for automobiles based on 1973 data. They used the results to predict the out-of-sample demand response to the gas price increases in subsequent years. Their results correctly matched the demand shift in the short-run (1974-1975), including the observed decline in the average fuel efficiency of new cars sold. What drove this result? Selection with heterogeneous consumers. The consumers who are most sensitive to the price increases were also the consumers most likely drop out of the market and not buy a new car. The data tell us that the selection effect (the consumers who buy new cars even when gas prices are rising tend to be the sort of people who buy less fuel-efficient cars) dominates the direct effect (each individual consumer buys a more fuel efficient car). In the present-day context, the decision of how many miles to drive in analogous to the decision of whether or not to buy a new car. The consumers who cut back their mileage the most in response to the gas price increases are also the consumers who drive the most fuel-efficient cars.
Posted by: Steven at Jun 10, 2008 8:41:41 PM
The tone of many comments here and on the links is very defensive. Why?
Posted by: dearieme at Jun 10, 2008 8:56:41 PM
Does Tom happen to touch on why fuel efficiency appears to be declining (even faster now that prices are up)?
Note in the first place that using weekly gasoline production is somewhat inaccurate as a proxy for gasoline consumption, since the stocks of gasoline vary from year to year and week to week as well. His data only goes to the first 18 weeks of the year, which means through April. However, figures from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the DOE demonstrate that there was a large buildup of gasoline stock from late last year through April, as refiners found the decrease in gasoline consumption to be unexpected.
Posted by: John Thacker at Jun 10, 2008 9:19:28 PM
Steven, it's rational and reasonable, but I'm skeptical. I would expect that people driving old inefficient clunkers would be the most price sensitive and drop out. Also, the supposed increase in inefficiency I noted is over the past year. That would take a lot of very efficient cars coming off the road in a very short time.
Posted by: aaron at Jun 10, 2008 9:30:00 PM
John, thanks! That helps, but how much could stocks be increasing?
I figure stocks may be increasing, and so may exports. That may explain a good portion of the discrepancy. The alternative explanations I have are very unattractive
Posted by: aaron at Jun 10, 2008 9:36:29 PM
The consumers who cut back their mileage the most in response to the gas price increases are also the consumers who drive the most fuel-efficient cars.
The claim could also be made that vacation trips, which are more likely to have extra passengers, are being cut before commuting trips.
Posted by: John Thacker at Jun 10, 2008 9:39:52 PM
Though that would only work if we were talking about passenger-miles decreasing faster than gas consumption, but the FHA data appears to be vehicle-miles, verifying from their website.
Posted by: John Thacker at Jun 10, 2008 9:40:57 PM
John, from the site you provided me, demand data: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/wgfupus2w.htm
It's not good for a comparison, but it still looks like the decrease is not as big as the 4+% decrease in driving.
Sorry for not looking at it more objectively, but I've spent too much time on the computer as it is (I'm recovering from surgery on my arm).
Posted by: aaron at Jun 10, 2008 10:20:50 PM
I too can't wait to read the book. I have always thought that the aggressive behavior of most drivers confirms that Hobbes was essentially right and that all the talk of human altruism is misplaced. Without clear and simple rules that are generally enforced, life on the road is solitary, nasty, brutish and (considering the contant rate of traffic fatalities over the years) short.
Posted by: enrique at Jun 10, 2008 10:33:14 PM
50 week moving average for Jan 6 2006 to May 30 2008
Posted by: aaron at Jun 10, 2008 10:50:36 PM
Hmm does this argument hold any weight? (assuming you accept all the premises)
P1: Income is correlated with intelligence
P2: Driving skill is correlated with intelligence
Thus by requiring a higher income to drive (through tolls, property taxes, higher gasoline taxes, etc) a lot of the worst drivers are essentially removed from the road leading to better driving conditions in European countries.
Posted by: Ryan at Jun 11, 2008 12:26:01 AM
Ryan, a more simple and probably much better version:
P1: Driving skill is correlated with age.
P2: Income is correlated with age.
IQ is not a good variable to include here. For instance, the ratio of university students, which presumably have an above average IQ, owning their own car is much smaller than the average car ownership ratio in that age group.
Posted by: US at Jun 11, 2008 4:19:26 AM
In a way, this can be reduced to the American faith that the only way to control human behavior is through an increasing burden of ever more strict rules. Coupled with the belief that only those rules are preventing outcomes too horrible to contemplate.
And questioning faith is always a dangerous business. Whether it be alcohol consumption or teenage pregnancies/abortions, countries where the laws are laxer (alcohol), or education and contraception broadly available (pregnancy/abortion), the reality is that in other societies such as Germany, which lacks these American strictures, there is also a lack of such American problems.
Which is not acceptable to Americans, of course, who in the main are convinced that the only thing which stops them from having even a larger problem is exactly what those countries with fewer problems don't have - a punitive and broadly binary approach to life, where the absence of laws and punishment is seen as license to do things which are plainly wrong. Need I point out that the autobahn unlimited speed stretches are not scenes of mass carnage, in part because having no speed limit is not the same thing as going as fast as possible in all circumstances?
Insane, really. And yet, this is how Americans strive to achieve a perfection that slips out of their fingers as the fist curls, gripping ever tighter in the illusion that this is the way to security. While the problem they atetmpt to solve grows, justifying ever more tightening.
Posted by: rent_to_own at Jun 11, 2008 6:07:12 AM
Steven, I agree with you. This is an adverse selection problem.
Posted by: Mike Fladlien at Jun 11, 2008 7:23:28 AM
