Driving studies make it to NPR and The New York Times! Summer reading lists come alive! But it ain’t us!

Illustration by Joon Mo Kang

A few weeks ago I got an urgent call from someone who—knowing my interest in all manner of things related to inexplicable behavior behind the wheel—wanted me to listen to an interview on NPR’s Fresh Air with someone discussing his book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us). I would have changed right away except I wasn’t really sure where NPR was and, besides, I was already listening to a pretty good rant on WEEI AM Sport Talk radio between two guys who couldn’t stand one more day of Manny-being-Manny and wanted him dumped to the NL for some left-hitting fielder who didn’t mind shagging a few balls around the outfield.

So that was that.

But, you can’t keep a good idea down and, sure enough, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us) and its author, Tom Vanderbilt, popped up on the cover of The New York Times Book Review on August 10. And, to be honest, there was a small flash of embitterment that an otherwise reliable authority would give face time to a driving dilettante who: a) produced a 402-page book with, yawn, secondary research; b) was a contributing editor at Wired(!); and c) isn’t even from Boston .

Since hearing the news I have been moping around the DLA office where the general response to my self-piteous envy has been, “Well, yeah, like, he musta known what he was talking about.” Knows what he is talking about? Doubtful. This is driving, after all. (And then there is that Wired thing.)

Still, knowing that any press is good press and a rising tide lifts whatever, I have moved beyond my disappointment with the satisfaction that anything that brings recognition to our field of study must be OK. And Vanderbilt clearly suspects he may be onto a good thing because, not willing to remain rest on his NPR and NYT laurels, he has started a blog which—in the true spirit of research collegiality—we will add to the DLA blogroll.

We have not yet read the book, POSSIBLY due to the fact that we DID NOT receive a REVIEW copy (but hey! that’s all in the past!) But, based on the chapter that the NYT Book Review posted on its site it seems as if Vanderbilt is bemused by the same enigmatic, yet challenging, phenomena that spark the fascination of the DLA Research team:

• 12.7 percent of the traffic slowdown after a crash has nothing to do with wreckage blocking lanes; it’s caused by gawkers

• Traffic does not yield to simple, appealing solutions.

• Adding lanes or roads is a short-lived fix.

• In a study of one 15-block area near U.C.L.A., cars were logging, on an average day, 3,600 miles in pursuit of a place to park.

And Vanderbilt seems to appreciate the history, too, digging back to pre-automotive days to let us know that, in 1867, “horses were killing an average of four pedestrians” per week in New York City, although most of us here got bogged down in his references to things like the Liber Albus and A Re-examination of Traffic in Pompeii’s Regio VI: The Casa del Fauno, the Central Baths, and the Reversal of Vico di Mercurio although we all agreed it was probably enchanting.

On the other hand, DLA is certain that the NYT reviewer has missed the boat when she suggests that the “solution to the nation’s vehicular woes” would be to make Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us) mandatory reading for all drivers license applicants. Right. Maybe in the lower 49, but not here in Massachusetts.

We can’t wait to read the rest as soon as it comes out in paper back…or when we RECEIVE a REVIEW copy. We only hope he shares our fascination and befuddlement with driving in general and with the uncharted abomination which is Boston driving… and doesn’t take on this Wired sort of “know-it-all,” hipper-than-thou like thing.