CONTACTTRAFFICABOUT TOM VANDERBILTOTHER WRITING CONTACT ABOUT THE BOOK

Archive for August 13th, 2008

The List

From the upcoming New York Times. Champagne corks are popping. The placement (just squeaking on to the big list, tied with a book I’d like to read), is funny, as an alternate title for my book could be “Driver Rant.”

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Posted on Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 at 4:41 pm by: Tom Vanderbilt
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Calling Dan Ariely

From today’s New York Times, about growing inventories of used SUVs on car lots. I’m not quite sure what psychologists would call this — perhaps a focusing effect?

“Given how much the automakers and dealers are willing to knock off an S.U.V.’s price, this is not a bad time to buy one, said Jesse Toprak, the director of industry analysis at Edmunds. Yet so many consumers are eager to avoid weekly $100 fill-ups that they are more focused on saving money at the gas pump than at the dealership.

“It’s a very psychological decision,” Mr. Toprak said. “You pay for the car just once, but you go to the pump every week, so that almost seems more important to you. Every time you go to the pump, you just want to feel good about it.”

And so thousands of Americans have been exchanging their sport utility vehicles for fuel-efficient cars, despite low trade-in values for the larger vehicles and a scarcity of small cars that has allowed dealers to charge sticker price or more for them.

“When you trade in a large S.U.V. for a compact car, you’re selling low and buying high,” Mr. Toprak said. “For a lot of people that’s not really logical, but they’re not really running the numbers.”

The story after the jump… (more…)

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Posted on Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 at 4:22 pm 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.

Upcoming Talks

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