Human Factors
Just for dark humor — it’s Friday, after all (and appropriately, it’s Friday the 13th).
(Horn honk to Roadguy)
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Just for dark humor — it’s Friday, after all (and appropriately, it’s Friday the 13th).
(Horn honk to Roadguy)
Why does traffic behave differently in different places? Why does driving in Cairo set the nerves on edge, while in Munich people stoically wait for crossing signals, even at minor intersections?
One’s first impulse may be to reach for cultural explanations. In Chinese cities, where queuing can seem rampantly disorderly (something the government endeavored to correct ahead of the Olympics), perhaps it’s only natural that negotiating an intersection can seem so trying. Go to Denmark, with its famously self-effacing and polite residents, and the highways are largely marked by scrupulous lane discipline and a lack of horn honking.
Or maybe it’s urban density, and the vehicle mix. Delhi is more crowded than New York or London, packing some 48 different modes of transport onto its streets. In sprawling Los Angeles, there is essentially one mode — the car — and plenty of wide (if congested) streets to drive on. How could the former not seem more “chaotic,” at least to the uninitiated?
Perhaps economics has an answer. The American economist George McDowell, using as an opener John F.A. Taylor’s comment that the “market is… a traffic in claims, not in things” — i.e., it’s not only commodities per se but relationships between people and things — goes on to postulate a theory that a country’s traffic behavior has something to do with its market structure.
China, McDowell argues, has historically had a mixed economic structure — some state-owned enterprises, but also a “long entrepreneurial tradition.” In the latter system the advertised price on a product is often just a suggestion; the real price is whatever is agreed upon. If you pay too much, the “advantage” goes to the shopkeeper. And so it is with Chinese traffic: Turning, merging, yielding and the like are opportunities to be gained or lost. If one is cut off, one accepts that they have been bested in this one-time transaction.
Contrast that to the U.S., where being cut off might bring on a voluble burst of “road rage” by the offended party. Fairness and justice are prized (if also violated). As with traffic, McDowell notes, Americans view markets not as “free” but as “open,” governed by formal and informal rules, where “opportunistic behavior is expected and even encouraged but within a strict set of parameters.”
As a rough rule of thumb, then, one might say if you’re driving in a place where bargaining over transactions is expected, there will be a good deal of bargaining on the road. If you’re in a place where the set price is always paid, you might expect traffic behavior to also follow these implicit top-down rules.
How We Drive is the companion blog to Tom Vanderbilt’s New York Times bestselling book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), published by Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S. and Canada, Penguin in the U.K, and in languages other than English by a number of other fine publishers worldwide.
Please send tips, news, research papers, links, photos (bad road signs, outrageous bumper stickers, spectacularly awful acts of driving or parking or anything traffic-related), or ideas for my Slate.com Transport column to me at: info@howwedrive.com.
For publicity inquiries, please contact Kate Runde at Vintage: krunde@randomhouse.com.
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April 9, 2008.
California Office of Traffic Safety Summit
San Francisco, CA.
May 19, 2009
University of Minnesota Center for Transportation Studies
Bloomington, MN
June 23, 2009
Driving Assessment 2009
Big Sky, Montana
June 26, 2009
PRI World Congress
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
June 27, 2009
Day of Architecture
Utrecht, The Netherlands
July 13, 2009
Association of Transportation Safety Information Professionals (ATSIP)
Phoenix, AZ.
August 12-14
Texas Department of Transportation “Save a Life Summit”
San Antonio, Texas
September 2, 2009
Governors Highway Safety Association Annual Meeting
Savannah, Georgia
September 11, 2009
Oregon Transportation Summit
Portland, Oregon
October 8
Honda R&D Americas
Raymond, Ohio
October 10-11
INFORMS Roundtable
San Diego, CA
October 21, 2009
California State University-San Bernardino, Leonard Transportation Center
San Bernardino, CA
November 5
Southern New England Planning Association Planning Conference
Uncasville, Connecticut
January 6
Texas Transportation Forum
Austin, TX
January 19
Yale University
(with Donald Shoup; details to come)
Monday, February 22
Yale University School of Architecture
Eero Saarinen Lecture
Friday, March 19
University of Delaware
Delaware Center for Transportation
April 5-7
University of Utah
Salt Lake City
McMurrin Lectureship
April 19
International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (Organization Management Workshop)
Austin, Texas
Monday, April 26
Edmonton Traffic Safety Conference
Edmonton, Canada
Monday, June 7
Canadian Association of Road Safety Professionals
Niagara Falls, Ontario
Wednesday, July 6
Fondo de Prevención Vial
Bogotá, Colombia
Tuesday, August 31
Royal Automobile Club
Perth, Australia
Wednesday, September 1
Australasian Road Safety Conference
Canberra, Australia
Wednesday, September 22
Wisconsin Department of Transportation’s
Traffic Incident Management Enhancement Program
Statewide Conference
Wisconsin Dells, WI
Wednesday, October 20
Rutgers University
Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation
Piscataway, NJ
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Ontario Injury Prevention Resource Centre
Injury Prevention Forum
Toronto
Monday, May 2
Idaho Public Driver Education Conference
Boise, Idaho
Tuesday, June 2, 2011
California Association of Cities
Costa Mesa, California
Sunday, August 21, 2011
American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Attitudes: Iniciativa Social de Audi
Madrid, Spain
April 16, 2012
Institute for Sensible Transport Seminar
Gardens Theatre, QUT
Brisbane, Australia
April 17, 2012
Institute for Sensible Transport Seminar
Centennial Plaza, Sydney
Sydney, Australia
April 19, 2012
Institute for Sensible Transport Seminar
Melbourne Town Hall
Melbourne, Australia
January 30, 2013
University of Minnesota City Engineers Association Meeting
Minneapolis, MN
January 31, 2013
Metropolis and Mobile Life
School of Architecture, University of Toronto
February 22, 2013
ISL Engineering
Edmonton, Canada
March 1, 2013
Australian Road Summit
Melbourne, Australia
May 8, 2013
New York State Association of
Transportation Engineers
Rochester, NY
August 18, 2013
BoingBoing.com “Ingenuity” Conference
San Francisco, CA
September 26, 2013
TransComm 2013
(Meeting of American Association
of State Highway and Transportation
Officials’ Subcommittee on Transportation
Communications.
Grand Rapids MI