Traffic: Flaw in Design or Drivers?

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It just so happened before I embarked on what should have been a 1.5 hour drive down the NJTP, that I received an email review from The New York Times of a book entitled Traffic.

Warning or Coincidence?

Let’s just say I sat on the Turnpike for so long, that twice I thought I was being followed until I realized that car behind me couldn’t get off the freeway either. ¹

I have my own theories on the ‘whys’ of traffic:

1. Merging
2. Failure to anticipate²

When I drive on the highway/freeway and I’m approaching merging traffic, if I’m in the slow lane,³ I move over to the middle lane to keep traffic moving. If I have to brake, so might the cars behind me.

Merging traffic is like double dutch, I drive in a way that allows people to jump in without stopping the flow. Same thing on the street. If I let one car turn left or right, even though I have the right of way, 10 cars can move on both sides again instead of holding up traffic.

I only got a blurb of the book, but Mr. Vanderbilt, the author of Traffic, says that traffic jams are not caused by flaws in road design, but by flaws in human nature. Rubber necking is caused by gawkers (people who slow down to look at accidents, dumped furniture or to dig out their cell phone to take a picture - “digi-necking”).

He also mentions in his book that because driving doesn’t command 100% of our attention, we feel comfortable multi-tasking: talking on the phone, eating, taking pictures and reading. The results? Accidents and traffic.

Okay, I admit, when I was sitting in first gear, I whipped out my camera. Maybe I learned to steer the wheel using my knees and it’s possible when traffic finally started moving, I glanced around for an explanation,⁴ but found none.

Who’s to blame? Road design or drivers? Here’s a video of Tom on the Today Show Video. I think my blog is about to crash.

1. Traffic births paranoia. [↩]
2. or care [↩]
3. which I usually am [↩]
4. bodies, ambulance, old couch [↩]