Comments for How We Drive, the Blog of Tom Vanderbilt's Traffic

Comment on The Brain-Sucking Tendency of Left Turns by David

David — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 14:57:08 +0000

I assume the results would be opposite in England.

Comment on The Brain-Sucking Tendency of Left Turns by Max Power

Max Power — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 02:33:37 +0000

The right turn can be done with so little thought that a motorist can run over a pedestrian or right-hook a cyclist without noticing anything out of the ordinary.

Comment on Whatever Happened to Walking? by Paul Godsmark

Paul Godsmark — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 19:38:05 +0000

I am reminded of the Piano Stairs in VW’s ‘Fun Theory’ collection:
http://www.thefuntheory.com/
The ‘stick; approach never seems to work that well and only as long as the ‘stick’ is applied. Is the carrot’ approach any better?…

Comment on The Single Most Important Item in the Global Economy by Tom W.

Tom W. — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 04:58:35 +0000

I’d put in a vote for the shipping container. That was a complete game changer that almost everyone got wrong.
http://www.amazon.com/Box-Shipping-Container-Smaller-Economy/dp/0691136408/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357880204&sr=1-1&keywords=the+box

Comment on Let the Robot Drive by Michelle

Michelle — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 20:40:38 +0000

I’m very curious about how driverless cars could affect carsharing. Right now, options for passenger car travel are having your own car (and paying for and its parking 24/7) calling/hailing a cab (and paying for both car and driver), or joining a carshare and trekking over to the closest available car (paying with your own extra travel time). If a driverless car could come pick you up and take you to your destination, then disappear, would it be a better substitute for car ownership?

Comment on The Vortex Junction by Milla

Milla — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 17:11:14 +0000

Bicycles or pedestrians? No problem. Vortexjunction is really the simplest for them too. See the intro video here: http://www.vortexjunction.magix.net/website#Intro
Changing lanes? Do You know any multilane intersection with multilevel flyovers, where You should not find your lane before You reach your correct lane onto a the correct flyover? I don’t think so. You have to to change lane in front of all type of intersections. In vortexjunction, 20-40% of cars drive on bypass ways and they changing lane before the intersection, so only 60-80% drive onto the spiral lanes, where the density of vehicles on the lanes is minus 20-40% less, so to do change a lane only to the left side is simpler than on the incoming multilane roads.
Transparency? When You are on the vortexjunction’s spiral lanes, the arc is so big that You cannot realize that it is a circular, You feel it as just a slight curve, so You can see everything in your mirrors, and mostly in your left mirror where You want to change lane only like others. And You can see your correct lanes marked on the road surface and on tables above the lanes.
In many cases the vortexjunction is the optimal solution with many benefits comparing any other conventional intersections.
See the intro video about this here: http://www.vortexjunction.magix.net/website#Intro

Comment on Manual or Automatic: Which Makes for Safer Driving? by Jace

Jace — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 00:29:01 +0000

I’ve only had my licence for a year, i drove an automatic for the first six months that I had my licence and now I’ve owned my own manual since. I feel much safer driving a manual, especially in rural areas because I pay more attention to my speed. I demolished a car by putting it off road last winter that was an automatic because it was hard for me to pay attention to my speed, especially in winter driving. I would’t even notice I was doing twice the speed limit in areas with loads of winding roads. The only thing I find less safe with manuals is in city driving (especially since I’m not yet 100% comfortable)that when trying to pulling out of places with a lot of traffic it’s harder to do it quickly, but i think that will come with time.

Comment on Why Traffic Slows at Tunnel Approaches by Eduardo

Eduardo — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 14:48:28 +0000

We face the same in Brazil, especially at the Rodoanel, a road ring around Sao Paulo city. Drivers will slow down or even brake at the entrance of a 2 km long tunnel, causing traffic to be jammed for up to 8 km (about 5 miles). The fear of the darkness and the unknown triggers the instinct of grabbing as much control as you can, so you would even swerve on the brakes if the tunnel was pitch dark, this I can undertand. In the other hand, modern tunnels are full of lights as bright as the sun, even in a tropical country like mine, so there is full vision ahead and yet the instinct prevails… I guess using more the reason and less the instinct could be bennefical for everyone… (as long as this does not reduce safety)

Comment on A Question of Parking by Mark

Mark — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 19:44:42 +0000

Reversing is more dangerous than driving forward, so you have just as much chance having a accident wether you reverse up a driveway or reverse out a drive way. Where I live, there has been a number of kids killed by big SUV’s reversing out of house hold driveways so our Safety Nazi at work is making us all reverse park at work where there are no kids and we don’t have big SUV’s. I am sure that if the general habit was to reverse up a driveway, there would be just as many accidents (if not more so as young kids rush out to see mum or dad return home).

Since reversing is harder than driving forward, surely it makes more sense for the average driver to prefer to reverse from a small space to a big space, than to have to reverse from a big space into a small space. Where I live parking is so sought after, that the moment you startreversing out, the other person that wants your park stops traffic while you reverse out, if you are the person lucky enough to get the vacent space, by the time you have stopped and put the car in reverse, some mongrel has tail gated you and won’t let you back up to turn in and you end up with a line of cars with the drivers fuming because they are held up.

Comment on Whatever Happened to Walking? by transportation engineer

transportation engineer — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 17:27:18 +0000

Walking has definitely disappeared in America. With everyone wanted to get where they are going fast, walking is just too slow. It is a lost art.