Aug. 18, 2008 -- 'Traffic' author Tom Vanderbilt chat
charles__Guest_: what percentage of drivers would you label "bad"?
Tom_Vanderbilt: Well, the safe sort of social science answer would be 15%, since the 85% benchmark seems to be used in many contexts as the sort of "normative" figure, with the rest being the exception... I also know that many studies have found 90% claiming to be "average" or "better than average" drivers — I didn't go to MIT but that math smells a bit fishy ...
soxnation09__Guest_: Driving in traffic ... Is there any other activity that can make people so passionate so quickly? Perhaps that's a rhetorical question, but just wondering...
Tom_Vanderbilt: Maybe just the BoSox/Yankees rivalry! (I'm a lifelong ChiSox fan so I plead immunity) But seriously, it's really what got me started on the book, as I was struck by the intense passion showed by people when I asked them about "early merging" versus "late merging" at "work zone merges." One of those seemingly trivial things that revealed a deep schism, sort of a Democrat/Republican thing as expressed on the roads..
Tinytina__Guest_: Have you ever had roadrage? Real roadrage.
Tom_Vanderbilt: I've not brandished a weapon or chased anyone down at an offramp, but sure, I suffer from it all the time. In New York, I swear the average wait at traffic lights has doubled due to slower reaction times owing to drivers talking on the phone. To paraphrase Sarte, hell is other drivers, and it's hard not to take a single trip without a range of idiotic or illegal behavior, stuff that just leaves me wondering why there never seems to be a highway patrol officer there when you'd want one... I'm rather pro certain forms of road rage, following the economist Herb Gintis. Why do we honk at bad drivers? After all, we'll never see them again, they may not heed our lesson. But we seem to have an instinct for justice, and studies have shown (in experimental games) how the presence of "strong reciprocators" can ensure cooperation in a system...not doing anything might harm the collective fitness of the society...
youngblood__Guest_: whaZT makes you a Traffic expert?
Tom_Vanderbilt: I have a driver's license! A certified Ph.D. in Traffic Studies.
Tom_Vanderbilt: But seriously, I'm not an expert. I simply tried to talk to experts, the people who devote years and years to quite specific topics in traffic/driving.
bowler18__Guest_: What is the worst city for traffic, in your opinion?
Tom_Vanderbilt: IN terms of congestion, obviously LA, but places like Toronto have pretty horrific bottlenecks. But Americans overall have it easy — commutes in places like Sao Paolo make ours look painless. As for driving behavior, the most chaotic, challenging I saw was probably Delhi, just for the sheer range of travel modes (48 different ones, count 'em) and lack of compliance with rules...and they tell me Delhi traffic isn't even the worst in India...
bowler18__Guest_: Boston must be up there. It's pretty hairy out there.
Tom_Vanderbilt: I proudly own a copy of the Boston Driver's Handbook, and think it's quite funny, but strangely, when you look at the crash rates in Boston, they're not even the highest in the state — and of course Massachusetts, in terms of fatalities per million miles traveled, is the safest state in the nation! That recent news about Massachusetts having the "worst drivers" was based on a silly driving quiz by an insurance company that was a media stunt. So either Boston drivers have become more polite, or it's the very 'chaotic' nature of the system that somehow makes its safer...
WeirLesh__Guest_: Do you think that certain vehicles (or their drivers') are more prone to road rage? I'm always getting motorcyclists ticked off at me when THEY are the ones swerving in and out of lanes, cutting me off, riding in my blindspot, etc.
Tom_Vanderbilt: Well, motorcycle drivers are certainly a rather self-selecting group and don't necessarily reflect a wide range of society ... But I think, as you suggest, it might have more to do with the drivers of vehicles rather than the vehicles themselves, and the short answer here would be men ... mile per mile, men cause more trouble in traffic. Full stop. I wish it wasn't this way, as a card-carrying male, but by every measure we have men drive more aggressively — and they tend to pay the price more often...
beep__Guest_: Let's talk rotaries -- why don't people know how to drive in them?
Tom_Vanderbilt: Well, at the risk of sounding pedantic, let's first distinguish between the older rotaries and the 'modern roundabout,' which differ in a number of aspects... I've been through some of the Massachusetts rotaries and one problem is that many of them allow vehicles in at too-high entry speeds, which tends to overly complicate things... but to answer your question, it does seem odd to me that people complain about them.. that it's hard to move around a circle at low speed with some other cars. If you can't handle this, I'd hate to see you try to cross four lanes on the 405, etc. Roundabouts are stressful, but that's a good thing. It raises a driver's levels of awareness in an intersection, which after all is the single most dangerous place to be in traffic...
timothy__Guest_: is traffic as bad or worse in other countries?
Tom_Vanderbilt: I think I answered this a few questions above, but to reiterate, average commute times are longer in a number of other countries... and as for traffic behavior, the U.S., on the level of safety, ranks not in the top 10 but, by various measures, 11th or 16th (to name a few). Perhaps not surprisingly, Sweden, Denmark, England, etc., rank as the safest...
madness__Guest_: Is there any way to curtail roadrage? It seems strange people get so worked up over a momentary incident.
Tom_Vanderbilt: One thing that's been suggested is a sort of national 'how's my driving' system, for eBay style driver feedback... this would allow people to complain about other's acts, rather than trying to exact personal revenge.. and drivers who got lots of complaints could see their insurance rates adjusted accordingly ...
RoadKing5000__Guest_: Aren't sportscars the worst? They seem to think they own the road. I drive an RV and I need my space!
Tom_Vanderbilt: You raise an interesting point about traffic — not only does it meld all these different people, but all these different vehicles, each with their own way of moving (and we all have our own candidates for who's 'worst')... Having not really driven an RV or a sports car, I can't side with one over the other...
anna__Guest_: I am surprised at the number of tractor trailors that ignore the left lane restrictions and most of them are from MA. Why are they so brazen?
Tom_Vanderbilt: That's a good one... Maybe because they're from Massachusetts they have experience on the roads and know they can get away with it. It's been argued that people respond more to "descriptive norms," the way people are actually behaving, than norms as to how people should behave, or the norms explicitly laid out in rules...
Ihate93__Guest_: Is there any evidence that the zip lane on 93 has done anything over the years to help traffic flow? Now that they need to repair that section of the road, the backups seem worse..
Tom_Vanderbilt: Sorry, I don't know that one.. Any traffic engineers in the house? MassDOT, are you there?