Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
One idea I've had for driver's ed is to offer bicycling classes
in high schools.  The traffic laws are the same for bicycling
and driving, and routefinding is similar, so this would be a less
dangerous way of getting experience with those aspects of driving.
I'd make the bicycle cource be a prerequisite for taking
driver's ed, which in California is already a pre-req for getting
a learner's permit and an early license.

And maybe some fraction of teens would just stick with the bike.
  

    
Here in Bermuda, there is a belief that using indicators to signal
your intention is a sign of weakness.
  

    
Meanwhile, in Indonesia a right turn indicator means, "I'm coming
through", while left means, "Be my guest". If it rains really heavily
everyone lights up their hazard flashers.
  

    
Tom, what sorts of responses did you get to th hardback edition?
  

    
(I just picked up the book today, so I'll read chapter one for my answer)
/
  

    
Following this with interest, Tom. 

I would like to comment on snowplow accidents: I live in snow country,
and while I think most of these crashes are caused by inattentive or
overconfident drivers in whiteout or blowing snow situations- which,
near Lake Michigan, are usually linked with icy roads, as well- you
also have to understand that the plows often travel at a high rate of
speed. 

On some of the country roads around here, a plow can cross your path,
out of nowhere, going like a bat out of hell, and you can be creeping
along and still hit them. In other situations, a sudden blast of wind
can make a plow, or any vehicle, disappear completely until you're on
top of them. 
  

    
Tom, I have to say that yours is the most depressing book that I have ever
read.  That's not to say that you're wrong.

I spent a good part of my career designing roads and streets, always
thinking things like "If I put this intersection at least 530 feet from the
next one, at a speed limit of 35 MPH, with these sight lines there will be
no problem."

All of that time spent on design, and one might as well spend it on
designing different drivers, for all the good it does!

At least I'm not designing streets anymore, or I'd be _really_ depressed!
  

    
> the more expensive the vehicle the more respect you get.

A German friend told me of a great expression they use in Germany.  As
regards, say, high-end Mercedes and BMWs.  When you buy such cars they
apparently come with 'eingebaude Vorfahrt' (sp ?).  Built-in
right-of-way.

Traffic is actually a very interesting topic and maybe I should get
this book (I confess: I haven't even read what's written about the book
on Amazon yet).

I think clearly in the US (and apparently Germany as well) traffic -
or rather the way people drive - is used as a proxy for the greater
social competition.  Of course this is incorrect and damaging.

Some people are just in a hurry.  Oftentimes that's because they have
very long commutes.

People talked about (socially) transportation _less_ during the 6
years I lived in Tokyo than when I returned here to the Bay Area - it
seems to be a very frequent topic of conversation (another net social
loss).  And that did include not just the foreigners in Japan but
Japanese as well because I speak Japanese.  I think I preferred riding
the Tokyo subway rather than driving any distance on the Bay Area's
roads.  However my commute time is less than 15 minutes and when we
bought a home the proximity to work was one of the reasons for which my
wife and I chose that home that we did.  Of course we were lucky that
most of the communities in the immediate area have good schools.
  

    
Sure enough I got the German spelling wrong.

The correct spelling is eingebaute Vorfahrt and the expression seems
to be well represented in a google search.  The first hit was from Die
Zeit, a major German publication.

http://www.zeit.de/1999/37/199937.iaa_brabus_.xml

(although this is in German).
  

    
Tom, have you heard anything about any towns or cities using your book
to help make decisions?
  

    
Hi Tom

Driving is learned behavior so it makes sense that it is culturally
based.  The discussion about different standards in different countries
is an obvious form  of it.  What do you think about regional
differences in driving behavior in the US?

I live in Minnesota but I learned to drive in New Jersey.  People talk
about "minnesota nice" as a behavior etiquette.  That it is.  But it
is also a screen for passive-aggressive behavior.  This comes out in
the way people drive.  I've been accused of aggressive driving but it
is considered "normal" in Jersey.  The evidence I give comes from the
Coen Brothers' film Fargo. 
  

    
Sharon,

I'd be a bit worried if towns were using the book to make decisions,
as it's not meant to be a design manual and I'm not a professional
planner/engineer!  Though it has certainly got back to me where the
book was brandished at a governmental meeting, ranging from the U.S.
DOT to the U.K.'s Ministry of Transport.  This is both exciting and
surprising to me, given that I had written the book basically as a way
to learn for myself some of what I thought were the larger mysteries of
the road.  I suppose that people involved in a technical professional,
with its set of orthodoxies and political disputes, might find it
interesting or at least cathartic to read someone with no particular
stake to look at the whole field.

Which leads to Alan's point about designing roads.  I suppose any
designer always has the issue of not being able to control how their
product will be used, or if their design will be appreciated.  But the
thing that strikes me about traffic engineers is that of all the
engineering professions, it seems unique in that its practitioners must
account for the human factor.  It's one thing to build a bridge with a
maximum load rating, but quite another to design the lanes on that
bridge so that drivers drive on them at a particular speed or in a
particular fashion.  Behavioral adaptation is everywhere in driving; in
fact, I think it tends to happen the moment we enter the car. 
Suddenly, our sense of time, distance, proximity to others,
relationship to the local landscape — all subtly and fundamentally
altered.  

One last note about video games, NASCAR, and TV perceptions of
driving.  I think we're all familiar with the shot of two people
talking inside a car, and how they seem to go on for many seconds
without glancing back at the road.  IN real life, of course, lane
position begins to deteriorate after just a few seconds.  But a larger
phenomenon is car advertising; a Canadian study looked at a whole slew
of car ads and found that a majority depicted "unsafe" driving acts. 
Most showed male drivers, and SUV/trucks had a higher percentage of
these acts.  Obviously, this is marketing — how many ads show the
actual conditions, creeping along in congested traffic while your kids
are screaming in the back? (to note one scenario).  But should the car
companies be held to some kind of standard, the way liquor advertising
can't show the product being consumed, or something?  I.e., to not
glorify the aggressive use of a quite deadly instrument?

  
  

    
Interesting to hear that it's been brandished at government meetings.
:) I've virtually brandished it a couple of times when people were
talking about making roads safer for bikes.
  

    
>I.e., to not glorify the aggressive use of a quite deadly
instrument?<

Any thoughts on the idea of aggression coming out somewhere if not in
the car?  I'm thinking how fans of different teams mingle with little
violence in the US compared with some other countries.  Another example
is suicide bombing in cultures with strict religious controls.

BTW, I find the idea of driving as anything but a survival matter to
be very scary.  The idea that what you drive and how you drive it as an
aspect of self-actualization gives me the willys.
  

    
As opposed to a Jeep, I assume.
  

    
!!!

> The idea that what you drive and how you drive it as an
>  aspect of self-actualization gives me the willys.

Clearly no one here appears to be a fan of the British television 
program TOP GEAR. 
  

    
Haven't seen it.  The web site appears to show driving on a track.  Is
this the idea?  

I have no problem with people driving fast and even killing themselves
on some special facility away from the public roads.  I may even be
willing to subsidize such facilities as a measure of self-defense.
  

    
Top Gear run timed laps on their track with a professional racing
driver to compare cars they are road testing (fastest is best) and to
test the skill of minor celebrities (in a standard cheapo sedan).

Another standard Top Gear segment is to concoct some sort of race (eg
between high end sports car and railway travel).

This petrol head favourite can be seen on BBC America.
  

    
Many of TOP GEAR's regular features take place on their track, while
others take place on the highways, from the UK to the Continent,
Japan, and North America. But fundamentally what the show is about is
the pleasure of driving and of well-made, well-performing cars at all
price levels, and yes, driving as self-actualization.  
  

    
Something that fascinated me about the book was just how much sheer
information was in it. How'd you find all that stuff, and how did you
end up organizing it, and how did you keep track of it all?
  

    
The term "performance" may have a number of connotations when applied
to cars (and the people who own them).  Could these include
environmental and other "impacts"?

BTW, I need work harder to get into this "driving as pleasure"
mindset.  I have some friends with that persuasion and they don't seem
to be too destructive or vain.  
  

    
Sharon,

On the information front, there really was no shortage, in part
because of the complexity of all the questions — and in the end, there
was so much I had to leave off the table, because the publisher wasn't
convinced the way I might have been with going to the marketplace with
a 600-page book titled 'Traffic.'  But what struck me was that it was
almost this secret kind of literature, out there in endless studies,
journal articles, compiled texts, that didn't often seem to filter out
to the general public.  I didn't even really know that people studied
something like driving, as commonplace as it is.  But when you visit
something like the Transportation Research Board meeting in DC, and you
see the 13,000 + conference attendees, all working in various
transportation issues, you realize the scope of the endeavor.

ON some other points, I won't deny that driving itself can have its
physical pleasures.  I'd hate to think I really derived anything like
self-actualization from something so minor, as I really don't take any
great stock in being defined by my car.  On this, I'm Canadian in
nature:  One survey study I looked at found that Canadians were more
likely to think of their car as an appliance, a way to get from a to b;
whereas Americans were more likely to report that their car was an
extension of themselves and their personality.  

And I do watch 'Top Gear' — I particularly liked the episode that
paired different modes of transport against one another in a race and
London, and the cycle topped the car.

A brief posting here, but I'm in transition in Houston airport; but
please keep those comments and questions a comin.'
  

    
>One survey study I looked at found that Canadians were more
likely to think of their car as an appliance, a way to get from a to
b;
whereas Americans were more likely to report that their car was an
extension of themselves and their personality.<

Could be proximity to the border but I recall a similar attitude the
UP  of Michigan.  Could also be winter driving, the great leveler.    
  

    
#47: so are you going to do a Director's Cut? :) Or another book?
  

    
A director's cut, a lovely idea!  I can already envision the new
chapters:  "HOV Lanes:  Good or Bad?"  "How to Navigate Toll Plazas." 
"The Secret Lives of Crash Test Dummies."  And there would definitely
have to be a chapter on Lagos, Nigeria — actually, an interesting new
book I just got the galleys for has precisely that (Ted Conover's The
Routes of Man).

This book began so accidentally that I've been waiting for another
'accident' to get the next book underway.  But I haven't come up with
anything sufficiently compelling — or, to be honest, saleable, always a
consideration but increasingly so in these days of economic
contraction among publishers.  I'm a bit torn between doing something
somewhat in the vein of Traffic, a logical progression, and something
absolutely divergent.  The meter is definitely running, however, and
I'm keen to get started on another big, all-consuming project soon
enough.  Anyone have any ideas?