Feeling safe kills.
From Mary Roach's review of Tom Vanderbilt's Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us) in last Sunday's New York Review of Books.
In which I learned that 80 percent of auto accidents happen because a driver was distracted for only three seconds.
Re feeling safe: Vanderbilt indicates that S.U.V.s are more dangerous than cars because they confer "a sense of safety — they invite careless behavior."
No indication in Roache's review of whether Vanderbilt tackles one of my pet wildass theories: That the increase of S.U.V.s on the road has contributed markedly to the slowing of traffic in recent years, because they reduce visibility for smaller cars. (Can't tell you how many times I had to wait for a big ass vehicle to move through their left turn so I could make my right turn.)
2 comments:
That drives me nuts. Sitting at a light, waiting to make a right turn because the SUV making a left pulled all. the. way. up. Even though he can't go anywhere until the light turns green. He clearly doesn't give a rat's ass about me. Even less, I have not even entered his mind enough for him not to care about. Me and my little right-turnin' car. SUV's! I shake my fist at them! Shake!
Sorry. I feel better.
I'm certain they contribute to multi-car pileups as you can't tell that the SUV in front of you is tail-gating until he/she slams the brakes in panic.
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