16 Quotes by Tom Vanderbilt

Traffic was as much an emotional problem as it was a mechanical one.

Drivers should not drive more than a minute without having a (purposefully-designed) curve.

As Harvard University psychologist Daniel Gilbert argues, 'You can't adapt to commuting, because it's entirely unpredictable. Driving in traffic is a different kind of hell every day.'

Children, in a very real sense, have beginners’ minds, open to wider possibilities. They see the world with fresher eyes, are less burdened with preconception and past experience, and are less guided by what they know to be true. They are more likely to pick up details that adults might discard as irrelevant. Because they’re less concerned with being wrong or looking foolish, children often ask questions that adults won’t ask.

In America, a pedestrian is someone who has just parked their car.

That which is best for an individual's interest may not be best for the common good.

The road itself tells us far more than signs do.

Traffic is more of the in between time where we think more about where we are going than where we are at the moment.

Human attention, in the best of circumstances, is a fluid but fragile entity. Beyond a certain threshold, the more that is asked of it, the less well it performs. When this happens in a psychological experiment, it is interesting. When it happens in traffic, it can be fatal.