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The book motivates readers to think differently about traffic safety, to suspend for the moment all background epidemeological, engineering, and psycholgoical beliefs. Readers are treated to a story of symbols, values and ideologies - an undercurrent of social process, collective behavior and cultural meaning that prevail in our society. By changing the paradigm of research, traffic becomes a different puzzle that requires innovative techniques and inquiries.
A sociology professor, David MacGregor wrote the following that nicely "describes" the book.
Rothe takes a problem from the realm of conventional, accepted reality and auto safety, and reconstructs it into a central means of investigating the human condition. Rothe challenges accepted accounts of traffic accidents that place the emphasis on indivdiual behavior, whether that of a "drunk" driver, the aged driver, or the young driver. Instead Rothe thrusts the analysis of traffic into a complex social scene that involves meanings and beliefs, institutional power, social engineering and environmental factors. Our roads and highways comprise a constructed social scene, he inisists: everyone is involved in creating a dense conflicted reality that is abbreviated and distored by official statistics of road use, property damaga, and death and injury.
Rothe's study is an example of the best tradition of renegade sociology. Like C. Wright Mills, Irving Horowitz, Doroty Smith, ROthe draws on the sociological imagination to reconstruct the social world. He uses a wide range of socil theory, and an abundance of empirical studies, to demonstrate that everyday life is indeed problematic. No silver bullet exists for the urgent problems of traffic safety. Peter Rothe shows that if we are to resolve one of the greatest and most tragic problems of the twentieth century, we will have to dramatically change our view of the world of traffic and of ourselves.
Excerpt
A quote used in the book to illustrate traditional way of thinking. A clown performs on a darkened stage:
...In this darkness is a solitary circle of light thrown by a street-lamp. Vallentin with hi long drawn and worried face walks round and round this circle of light, desperately looking for something. "What have you lost?" a policeman asks ... "The key to my house." Upn which the policeman joins him in his search; they find nothing; and after a while he inquires: Are you sure you lost it here?" "No" says Vallentin, and pointing to a dark corner of the stage: "Over there." Then why on earth are you looking for it here?" There is no light over there", says Vallentin.
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