CONTACTTRAFFICABOUT TOM VANDERBILTOTHER WRITING CONTACT ABOUT THE BOOK

Archive for July 16th, 2008

How the Apes Crossed the Road

Photo by Kimberley Hockings

All the discussion about giving Great Apes new rights in Spain reminded me of an interesting “traffic study” of sorts that had been done involving chimpanzees — with whom we share 98% of our DNA — in Guinea.

In a fascinating report, a group of researchers set out to learn how a recently enlarged road, running through the territory of a 12-strong chimp colony, might have changed their behavior. After all, roads have been known to have had quite negative effects on wildlife. Interestingly, though, the chimps seemed to “draw on a phylogenetically-old principle of protective socio-spatial organization to produce flexible, adaptive and cooperative responses to risk.” In other words, they learned to cross the road.
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Posted on Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 at 2:05 pm by: Tom Vanderbilt
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Murder at the Traffic Circle

I wasn’t quite sure what could top, in terms of senseless road depravity, the story, from Los Angeles, of the driver who attacked a pair of cyclists with his car (it was his second reported altercation).

But then I read about the case of the Seattle man who was killed while tending to the flowers in the traffic circle outside his house, apparently by some passing drivers who took issue with the safety cones he had temporarily put up while watering. The man, a Vietnam vet, had himself lobbied for the circle after a car had struck his house.

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Posted on Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 at 7:49 am by: Tom Vanderbilt
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Traffic Tom Vanderbilt

How We Drive is the companion blog to Tom Vanderbilt’s New York Times bestselling book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), published by Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S. and Canada, Penguin in the U.K, and in languages other than English by a number of other fine publishers worldwide.

Please send tips, news, research papers, links, photos (bad road signs, outrageous bumper stickers, spectacularly awful acts of driving or parking or anything traffic-related), or ideas for my Slate.com Transport column to me at: info@howwedrive.com.

For publicity inquiries, please contact Kate Runde at Vintage: krunde@randomhouse.com.

For editorial inquiries, please contact Zoe Pagnamenta at The Zoe Pagnamenta Agency: zoe@zpagency.com.

For speaking engagement inquiries, please contact
Jenna Meulemans at the Knopf Speaker Bureau.

Order Traffic from:

Amazon | B&N | Borders
Random House | Powell’s

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U.S. Paperback UK Paperback
Traffic UK
Drive-on-the-left types can order the book from Amazon.co.uk.

For UK publicity enquiries please contact Rosie Glaisher at Penguin.

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