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Archive for March 22nd, 2010

Unintentional Acceleration

I’m slow to get to this, but this incredible case of a sideways high-speed shunt in the U.K. is about as dramatic a case you can imagine of how divorced a motorist can be from the world around him.

Via the BBC:

In a bid to release her vehicle, she said she pulled on the handbrake and flashed her hazard lights to try to catch the driver’s attention, as well as that of other road users, but she said it took the lorry driver nearly a minute to notice her.

When he did he was “all over the place”, Mrs Williams said, and finally managed to bring both vehicles to a stop on the hard shoulder.

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Posted on Monday, March 22nd, 2010 at 2:00 pm by: Tom Vanderbilt
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Komanoff on the C-Charge

Charles Komanoff reports from Gauangzhou:

With double-digit rises in car ownership and the city’s relentless expansion outpacing even the rapid provision of transit, the idea of charging a toll to drive into Guangzhou’s city center is gaining traction. The rationale is clear: drivers who pay only for their own lost time but not for the time their trips take from other drivers have little incentive to prioritize trips by car.

Singapore, London and Stockholm have been using congestion pricing for 35, 7 and 3 years, respectively, and the meeting featured detailed reports on how these cities overcame the political hurdles and improved traffic dramatically through tolling. Nevertheless, a congestion pricing plan proposed by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg died in the state legislature in 2008. In my talk, I drew these lessons for Guangzhou from New York’s failure:

• To succeed politically, congestion pricing must produce dramatic increases in travel speeds — at least 15 percent — in the charging zone. (The Bloomberg plan promised only a 7 percent gain.)

• The toll must align benefits with costs. In New York, a hefty taxi surcharge — on the entire fare, not just the “drop” — would ensure that residents of Manhattan, who use taxis rather than private cars, paid their fare share.

• Transit improvements financed by the toll revenues must be instituted ahead of time, and fare reductions guaranteed.

The stance of the domestic transportation experts here has been one of cautious interest: appreciation of congestion pricing as a virtually fail-safe tool, tempered by awareness that politics leaves little room for error in designing the toll, choosing the tolling technology, and marketing the program.

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Posted on Monday, March 22nd, 2010 at 1:33 pm by: Tom Vanderbilt
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‘A proper bastardised, chaved up Skippy mobile’

Car advert as classist social commentary. Think of it as an FSBO for the ASBO crowd. Reading it and the comments puts me in mind of the immortal David St. Hubbins: “It’s such a fine line between clever and stupid.”

The ad is here.

(Thanks to the indefatigable Alan)

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Posted on Monday, March 22nd, 2010 at 7:34 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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