Traffic Safety

Rating:
Summary: Masterly and highly readable
Review: A MASTERLY AND COMPREHENSIVE COVERAGE OF THE FIELD OF TRAFFIC SAFETY BY THE GLOBAL EXPERT. AS EXPECTED FROM THIS AUTHOR, THE LUCID AND WITTY STYLE MAKES READING THIS BOOK A VERITABLE PLEASURE.

Rating:
Summary: Everything you ever wanted to know about traffic safety...
Review: I recommend this book highly. It answers just about every traffic safety question. While written mainly for safety professionals, I found it fascinating, very readable and so clearly written it was easy to understand even though I am not professionally involved.

I enjoyed the author's humor and the way he gets right to the core of an issue. He gives suggestions not only for better traffic policies but also for making yourself safer on the roads.

The author is not only an academic expert on the subject - but he himself has never been involved in a traffic accident. Some may think that lucky, but I'm fairly sure the more knowledge you gain on this subject, the luckier you become....

Rating:
Summary: A regulatory must-read
Review: On a 10-point scale, I rate the quality and veracity of the data at 9.5 to 10, and the quality of the writing at 9 to 10.

Dr. Evans lucidly draws and thoroughly supports some very cogent and important conclusions, e.g., the US has placed far too much emphasis on making cars into crash-survival cells-assuming that a crash is inevitable-and not nearly enough on preventing crashes in the first place. While many of his suggestions for remedying this have significant merit and warrant careful consideration by the regulatory community, Evans does make some suggestions that may have theoretical merit, but are probably impractical and/or impracticable in the real world, e.g., mandatory speed governors on all vehicles.

Evans also does an excellent job of soundly and robustly documenting and supporting his opinions, e.g., the auto safety rubric in the US places doctors, lawyers and politicians in charge of policies that should instead be administered by engineers. He skillfully and incisively excoriates a regulatory system gone horribly wrong without sounding as though he's hysterically pushing conspiracy theory or a self-serving agenda (cf. Ralph Nader).

Evans' comparative analysis of the results of various countries' overall traffic and road safety regulation schema is enlightening, educational and-for those of us in North America-alarming.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and comprehensive
Review: On September 11th, 2001 about as many people died in the world in traffic as died in the terrorist attacks on America. More than a million people are killed on the world's roads each year. Leonard Evans provides a superb overview of the most important scientific findings in the field of traffic safety. (Most people in the US think traffic safety is about crash tests, but the truth is very different!)

The writing is lively and clear. There are tables and graphs throughout the book illustrating key data and principles. The early chapters cover the fundamentals of traffic safety. Later chapters build on this to analyze controversial subjects such as the dangers of SUVs, older drivers, and airbags. The heart of the book is the last two chapters analyzing the tragic mistakes that have been made in US traffic safety policy, why they happened, and a proposal for a more rational traffic safety policy.

I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a fascination read on an important subject that receives too little attention. It should be required reading for anyone in the field or involved in traffic safety policy.

Rating:
Summary: Insightful & Thought Provoking
Review: Similar to the earlier text by the same author, this book is well written and easy to understand. Besides the inclusion of newer research data, this book also has a stronger emphasis on public policies discussions that are supported by the data presented. These discussions are insightful and thought provoking. An excellent book that should be read by all road safety professionals.


Rating:
Summary: The Expert That the Experts Go To
Review: This is one truly wonderful book by one of the world's safety pioneers, and one of the most brilliant minds in traffic safety today.