CONTACTTRAFFICABOUT TOM VANDERBILTOTHER WRITING CONTACT ABOUT THE BOOK

Archive for April 27th, 2010

Numerology at the DMV

I could have spent the rest of my life parked behind this vehicle and never gotten the “meaning” of a license plate bearing the characters ‘14CV88′:

A few hours later, the DMV agreed that the plate contains a coded message: The number 88 stands for the eighth letter of the alphabet, H, doubled to signify “Heil Hitler,” said CAIR’s Ibrahim Hooper. “CV” stands for “Confederate veteran” — the plate was a special model embossed with a Confederate flag, which Virginia makes available for a $10 fee to card-carrying members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. And 14 is code for imprisoned white supremacist David Lane’s 14-word motto: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”

Wow. Now I’m wondering if there’s something jinky in my own plate. Does that ‘669′ bit connote some weird Satanist thing, or some kind of creative sexual liaison?

But apparently there was something a bit less subtle about the vehicle.

(via Boing Boing)

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Posted on Tuesday, April 27th, 2010 at 10:21 pm by: Tom Vanderbilt
12 Comments. Click here to leave a comment.

Talking Traffic on Streetsfilms

I stopped by the offices of Streetsfilms recently for a chat with Mark Gorton, founder of the Open Planning Project (among many other things). Have a look here if you’d like.

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Posted on Tuesday, April 27th, 2010 at 3:52 pm by: Tom Vanderbilt
2 Comments. Click here to leave a comment.

The Accidental Journalist (an occasional series chronicling how predictable, preventable crashes are turned into accidents)

Reader Joshua points to this story, via The Strib. All the usual suspects: Alcohol, no belts, previous crashes.

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Posted on Tuesday, April 27th, 2010 at 7:05 am by: Tom Vanderbilt
7 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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