CONTACTTRAFFICABOUT TOM VANDERBILTOTHER WRITING CONTACT ABOUT THE BOOK

Archive for June 19th, 2009

Traffic Safety Film of the Week

In an English mood lately, this one features none other than Darth Vader — e.g., David Prowse (and ironically, there’s an R2D2 ripoff). That kid in the second film looks a bit to me like an older version of “Danny” in The Shining.

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Posted on Friday, June 19th, 2009 at 4:26 pm by: Tom Vanderbilt
3 Comments. Click here to leave a comment.

Update on ‘Barrel Monster’

When I posted the above photo before, I didn’t quite realize what a cause celebre the ‘Barrel Monster’ had become.

From the Raleigh News-Observer:

In the week since Joseph Carnevale, a student at N.C. State University, was arrested June 10, both he and the Barrel Monster have attracted attention from around the country, and even the world.

The monster’s image was broadcast on national television networks Thursday amid coverage of the mass street demonstrations in Iran to protest the disputed election there. An interview with Carnevale aired that afternoon on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” a national radio program.

Nearly 3,000 people have joined a page on Facebook, the social networking site, urging Wake prosecutors to drop the charges. The Barrel Monster, which was created under Carnevale’s nom d’art, Uliveandyouburn, has hundreds of Internet admirers, some from as far away as Brazil and South Korea. The page includes a doctored photograph showing the monster standing in for Jack Ruby as the killer of President John F. Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, in an iconic image.

Carnevale may have tapped into a growth industry:

At Hamlett Associates, the company that owned the barrels, staff members have repeatedly said they never wanted to press charges. Instead, they’d like to have a Barrel Monster of their own to display either at their Guilford County office or at a job site.

Steven Hussey, the company’s president, said he has turned down offers from Barrel Monster supporters who have called the company offering to repay him the less than $400 in barrels it took to create the statue. Send the money to charity instead, Hussey tells them.

“For a small amount of money, we got a ton of publicity,” Hussey said.

Perhaps the NYC DOT could erect a few at the gates of the newly closed section of Broadway at Times Square?

(thanks Daniel)

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Posted on Friday, June 19th, 2009 at 2:03 pm by: Tom Vanderbilt
1 Comment. Click here to leave a comment.

Powered by Heineken

This one’s from Amsterdam, but apparently they’re sweeping Europe: The Beer Bike!

UPDATE: As the commenter below notes, these are available in Minneapolis, including for “team-building” events and conventions. My first question is why the streets of D.C. weren’t filled with these paragons of vehicular awesomeness during the last TRB? What better way to enliven a dreary transpo conference than these mobile watering holes!

(thanks Dan)

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Posted on Friday, June 19th, 2009 at 7:10 am by: Tom Vanderbilt
3 Comments. Click here to leave a comment.
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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