Free Cool Down by Steve Prentice Page B

Driver and the Drunk Driver, Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society , June 2006.
    3
    Pink, Daniel H., A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age , Berkley Mass Market, February 2006.
    4
    Murphy, Cait. “Secrets of Greatness: How I Work,” Fortune Magazine , http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/02/news/newsmakers/howiwork_fortune_032006/index.htm
    Â 
    WHEN ONE TRAVELS FAST,
TREES BESIDE THE ROAD BECOME
A WALL MADE OF LEAVES.

CHAPTER 3
    PERSONAL BLUR
    Â 
    Time for a quick review. In Chapter 1, I highlighted how human nature forces us to constantly want to take in more and more information (Parkinson’s Law), and how this “brilliant haze of light” leads to a point of finite productivity (The Law of Diminishing Returns). In Chapter 2, I illustrated how this high-speed appetite has resulted in a reduction of interpersonal communication (Intellectual Isolation) and of productivity (Presenteeism). The next issue that needs investigation is how speed has conditioned us individually into living within a type of “event-to-event” thinking, which leads to hasty decisions and a further loss of opportunity due to not perceiving all the necessary details before acting.

THE ILLUSION OF SPEED
    In the 100 years or more since the development of the first horseless carriages, automotive power has risen from 12 horsepower (hp) inside a 1904 Duryea Phaeton to 250 hp for a modern family car, and much, much more for those Porsches mentioned in this book’s introduction. Progress is constant and astonishing. James Bond’s beautiful Aston Martin DB5, for example, which was considered a super-car in 1962, can now easily be outpaced by a well-tuned Honda. But as speed has increased, so has it decreased.
    Take traveling, for instance. Though the available horsepower in a typical family car has increased twentyfold, people are not able to travel twenty times faster. For although cars themselves are capable of a great deal more speed, they seldom get to exercise this ability on major streets and highways. This is due not to any physical fault of the car, but to congestion, caused most often by the poor driving habits of aggressive, speed-obsessed drivers and lane-hoppers.
    In China, where the desire for personal advancement has itself taken a great leap forward, 30,000 new cars are being added to the streets of Beijing each month. That’s 1,000 additional cars every single day. 1 The traffic jams are unbelievable, and though the traditional bicycle is now being usurped by upwardly mobile urban Chinese people, it is often still the fastest way around town.
    Regardless of the country, this rush hour paradox—faster cars but slower traveling—is a classic example of what happens when people think speed rather than efficiency .
The Cool Approach to Commuting
    A study, performed in 1999 by Donald A. Redelmeier and Robert J. Tibshirani, sought to identify whether aggressive lane-hoppers really benefited from constantly switching lanes when driving in congested traffic. The study was based on a principle they called roadway illusion , namely, “that the next lane on a congested roadway appears to be moving faster than the driver’s current lane even if both lanes have the same average speed.” 2 Their findings showed that unless there was an actual lane obstruction such as an accident, no lane is faster than any other during high-volume rush-hour traffic. It appears to a frustrated driver that the cars and trucks in the other lanes are moving more quickly, but this is because most observers only really take note of such vehicular injustices when they themselves are being passed, and they are not so likely to see them when their own lane temporarily becomes the faster one. In addition, cars that pass an observer tend to remain in the field of view (up ahead) longer than those that have been passed.
    Furthermore, many other traffic studies