Driving Your Car: What Makes Commutes Possible

About this episode

Cars transformed modern life—but automobiles alone were not enough. Cars would have been useless without a second invention: driving. Behind the daily commute is a vast, intricate system of customs, laws, and innovations that make driving possible. This system evolved over decades and its development wasn’t easy or fast. Ride along with Virginia Postrel and Charles C. Mann as they explore the hidden history of traffic, road design, and the strange creation of modern driving. Podcast website: http://abundance.institute/EverydayAbundance Picture the main street in a classic Western movie like Shane or High Noon. There are no lines down the middle. No stop signs, no speed limits, no left-turn lanes—in fact, no lanes at all. People ride their horses or drive their carriages wherever they want, however they want, no matter how crowded the street. They can do this because horses are intelligent beasts that won’t run into each other.  Then came the automobile. People are now in charge—suddenly, totally, in ways they have not been before. The result: a tsunami of fatal car crashes. In 1913, more than 33 people died for every 10,000 vehicles on the road—more than 20 times today’s ve