Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do

And the subtitle is "(and What It Says About Us)".  The author is Tom Vanderbilt and here is the Amazon link.  I wrote the following blurb for it:

"Everyone who drives–and many people who don’t–should read this book. It is a psychology book, a popular science book, and a how-to-save-your-life manual, all rolled into one. I found it gripping and fascinating from the very beginning to the very end."

It’s out in July and so far it is one of the best popular social science books of the year. 

I also liked the article on traffic — John Staddon’s "Distracting Miss Daisy" — in the latest Atlantic Monthly.  It had these two good sentences:

Paradoxically, almost every new sign put up in the U.S. probably makes drivers a little safer on the stretch of road it guards.  But collectively, the forests of signs along American roadways, and the multitude of rules to look out for, are quite deadly.

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