Book Review: Traffic

Tom Vanderbilt’s Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) breaks down the reality of traffic into terms we can all understand. Through his explanations, analyses, and anecdotes, he opens the reader’s mind to different perspectives and encourages new ways of thinking. It’s more than just traffic; the book provides a new lens for examining any common task, anything we take for granted. It also encourages exploring the potential consequences of your actions, the future effects that might contradict the conventional wisdom. In doing so, the author provides leaders with the spark to ignite new thinking about their respective fields.

Traffic shows how the way we think we drive, and the way we actually do, are two VERY different things. It challenges the reader to confront biases and accepted ways of thinking, and demonstrates how perception changes when perspective shifts. For leaders, this helps challenge notions of conventional wisdom and accepted truths. Sure, some truths are accepted because they are, well, true, but in many cases you and your employees would benefit from at least taking a look at your beliefs to see what, if anything, is coloring them.

Exploring consequences carefully is useful for those in strategic planning positions, or for those fields that try to influence others, such as those in the advertising industry. Vanderbilt looks at why common traffic conditions exist and explores the effects of different solutions. In many cases we find the most commonly suggested solutions actually add to the problem. Very often it is the counterintuitive solution that actually fixes the problem. He makes the point that you really need to examine the past effects of similar options rather than just accepting the common sense answer. Traffic reminds us to carefully evaluate the likely results of our actions.

Traffic is not specifically a book about design, but it encourages designers to look at different viewpoints from alternative perspectives. It is not specifically a book about strategic planning, but it leads planners to plot out the effects of their recommended courses of action. It is not specifically a book about leadership, but it helps us understand just how challenging things get when an odd variable — people — is involved.