CONTENTS
Prologue
Why I Became a Late Merger (and Why You Should Too) 3
Chapter One
Why Does the Other Lane Always Seem Faster? How Traffic Messes with Our Heads
Shut Up, I Can't Hear You: Anonymity, Aggression, and the Problems of Communicating While Driving 19
Are You Lookin' at Me? Eye Contact, Stereotypes, and Social Interaction on the Road 27
Waiting in Line, Waiting in Traffic: Why the Other Lane Always Moves Faster 40
Postscript: And Now, the Secrets of Late Merging Revealed 45
Chapter Two
Why You're Not as Good a Driver as You Think You Are
If Driving Is So Easy, Why Is It So Hard for a Robot? What Teaching Machines to Drive Teaches Us About Driving 51
How's My Driving? How the Hell Should I Know? Why Lack of Feedback Fails Us on the Road 57
Chapter Three
How Our Eyes and Minds Betray Us on the Road
Keep Your Mind on the Road: Why It's So Hard to Pay Attention in Traffic 74
Objects in Traffic Are More Complicated Than They Appear: How Our Driving Eyes Deceive Us 89
Chapter Four
Why Ants Don't Get into Traffic Jams (and Humans Do): On Cooperation as a Cure for Congestion
Meet the World's Best Commuter: What We Can Learn from Ants, Locusts, and Crickets 102
Playing God in Los Angeles 108
When Slower Is Faster, or How the Few Defeat the Many: Traffic Flow and Human Nature 119
Chapter Five
Why Women Cause More Congestion Than Men (and Other Secrets of Traffic)
Who Are All These People? The Psychology of Commuting 131
The Parking Problem: Why We Are Inefficient Parkers and How This Causes Congestion 142
Chapter Six
Why More Roads Lead to More Traffic (and What to Do About It)
The Selfish Commuter 15 3
A Few Mickey Mouse Solutions to the Traffic Problem 161
Chapter Seven
When Dangerous Roads Are Safer
The Highway Conundrum: How Drivers Adapt to the Road They See 176
The Trouble with Traffic Signs-and How Getting Rid of Them Can Make Things Better for Everyone 186
Forgiving Roads or Permissive Roads? The Fatal Flaws of Traffic Engineering 204
Chapter Eight
How Traffic Explains the World: On Driving with a Local Accent
"Good Brakes, Good Horn, Good Luck": Plunging into the Maelstrom of Delhi Traffic 211
Why New Yorkers Jaywalk (and Why They Don't in Copenhagen): Traffic as Culture 216
Danger: Corruption Ahead— the Secret Indicator of Crazy Traffic 231
Chapter Nine
Why You Shouldn't Drive with a Beer-Drinking Divorced Doctor Named Fred on Super Bowl Sunday in a Pickup Truck in Rural Montana: What's Risky on the Road and Why
Semiconscious Fear: How We Misunderstand the Risks of the Road 244
Should I Stay or Should I Go? Why Risk on the Road Is So Complicated 248
The Risks of Safety 262
Epilogue: Driving Lessons 277
Acknowledgments 287
Notes 293
Index 385