TY - GEN AU - Vanderbilt, Tom TI - Traffic : : why we drive the way we do (and what it says about us) SN - 9780307277190 U1 - 388.310973 PY - 2009/// CY - New York PB - Vintage books KW - N1 - 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 ER -