CONTACTTRAFFICABOUT TOM VANDERBILTOTHER WRITING CONTACT ABOUT THE BOOK

Archive for March 18th, 2009

Intexticated

I hadn’t seen this useful word before, but given the similar orders of impairment, it may well be time to introduce it into the lexicon.

The horrifying, poignant case — one of those stark reminders of the ethical and moral implications of how our own distracted driving behavior can affect others — discussed in this Snopes.com posting is real — more details here. Note the repeated use in the TV clip of the word “accident.”

As far as I know texting hasn’t been authoritatively implicated yet — something that is very hard to prove — but given the driver’s behavior some form of impairment seems likely.

Note, for example, this piece about teens trying to text and drive. Those who do it the most are most confident it will not affect their driving.

Collin takes his eyes off the road several times and for long periods of time, sometimes up to 3 seconds. Collins dad watches the video tape replay and is surprised at how long his son’s eyes are off the road. Collin’s dad: “There’s a long span there.”

(Thanks Tom Everson)

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Posted on Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 at 2:52 pm by: Tom Vanderbilt
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Traffic Versus Traffic

Via the San Jose-Mercury News, in a curious conjunction of the worlds of virtual and real traffic, the founder of TechCrunch — among the top 10 most valued blogs in the Internet — has left his home office, as it was drawing too much traffic.

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Posted on Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 at 12:09 pm by: Tom Vanderbilt
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Lane Discipline

Driveways are one of the more dangerous suburban landscape features (for all modes), and I was intrigued to see this approach, outside of a store, somewhere in Japanese suburbia. I love the landing-strip wands and all.

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Posted on Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 at 11:58 am by: Tom Vanderbilt
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One Lane to Rule Them

A corollary benefit of primary seat-belt laws. Via the sadly soon-to-be-virtual Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

“A commuter who put a homemade dummy in the passenger seat to sneak into the car pool lane was caught Wednesday near Seattle. But it wasn’t because a cop realized the passenger was fake. Instead, the State Patrol trooper noticed the dangling belt buckle on the passenger side and suspected a seat belt violation.

Patrol spokeswoman Christina Martin told The Herald of Everett that the driver acknowledged trying to beat traffic by using the HOV lane.

He created his passenger by draping a rain jacket over plastic piping, topping it off with a Halloween mask of Gandalf, the “Lord of the Rings” wizard, a beard and a baseball cap.”

(via Roadguy)

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Posted on Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 at 8:32 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.

Upcoming Talks

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