Cosmological Cabbage Book Review -- Traffic

One of the books that I got for Christmas, is a book called "Traffic Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What it Says About Us). The book is written by Tom Vanderbilt, and it was on the New York Times Bestseller List.

I immediately jumped into the book because the first chapter was on late mergers. When you have two lanes of traffic merging into one, and drivers are warned about it in advance, two behaviours are observed. Some drivers immediately get into lane that continues, and other drivers drive all the way up to the merge point and merge at the last minute into traffic.

Many a time, these late mergers are seen as queue jumpers and butting in line. However Vanderbilt contends that it is the most efficient way of merging and cites scientific studies to prove it. I discovered that late merging worked for me when I had a daily commute on a four lane highway in Canada several years ago. It was good to discover that my own conclusions were validated by the book.

However after the first chapter, the book became a real slog to read. I have not yet finished it. It becomes rather pedantic and starts citing all sorts of esoteric and arcane traffic studies and behaviours, but it does not put them into readable prose. It is a tough read.

I will update this report when I finish the book, but right now, it looks like that day is far off.