Tom Vanderbilt

“The pursuit of a kind of absolute safety, above all other considerations of what makes places good environments, has not only made…

— Tom Vanderbilt

Human attention, in the best of circumstances, is a fluid but fragile entity. Beyond a certain threshold, the more that is asked…

— Tom Vanderbilt

Many traffic signs have become like placebos, giving false comfort to the afflicted, or simple boilerplate to ward off lawsuits, the roadway…

— Tom Vanderbilt

“This is the reason the whole ‘keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel, use the hands-free handset’ idea…

— Tom Vanderbilt

The way humans hunt for parking and the way animals hunt for food are not as different as you might think.

— Tom Vanderbilt

“This raises the interesting, if seemingly outlandish, question of why car drivers, virtually alone among users of wheeled transport, do not wear…

— Tom Vanderbilt

“'Can you imagine, 30 years ago, saying nobody will make coffee at home?' Nancy McGuckin, a travel researcher in Washington, D.C.”

— Tom Vanderbilt

Men may or may not be better drivers than women, but they seem to die more often trying to prove that they…

— Tom Vanderbilt

“There is a simple mantra you can carry about you in traffic: When a situation feels dangerous to you, it's probably more…

— Tom Vanderbilt

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

— Tom Vanderbilt

“It's probably no accident that whenever one hears of a smart technology, it refers to something that has been taken out of…

— Tom Vanderbilt

The road, more than simply a system of regulations and designs, is a place where many millions of us, with only loose…

— Tom Vanderbilt

Whether advanced driver training helps drivers in the long term is one of those controversial and unresolved mysteries of the road, but…

— Tom Vanderbilt

“When a situation feels dangerous to you, it's probably more safe than you know; when a situation feels safe, that is precisely…

— Tom Vanderbilt

The relative ease of most driving lures us into thinking we can get away with doing other things. Indeed, those other things,…

— Tom Vanderbilt