Fighting Traffic The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City (Inside Technology)

I haven't read. I've flipped through the book Fighting Traffic by Peter D. Norton, which is all about the early years of the car industry.

I am only basing my evidence on Mr. Norton's book, but he tells a very clear story that the relationship between the American Automobile Association and the National Safety Council got closer.

If I say, what's a street for? Somebody's going to say car right away. It's like free association in psychology.

You know, it's just automatic. And I think that's really interesting because if you had asked that same question to a random person a hundred years ago, I think they would have had more different answers, like a variety of different answers and none of them would have said that a street is for cars even though there were a lot of cars then.

I'm the author of Fighting Traffic, The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City.

To Norton, there is no mystery here. A street's for cars. It's automatic. If I say what's a street for? Somebody is going to say car right away. It's like free association in psychology.

His recent book is Traffic, Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion Dollar Race to go viral. It comes out next week.

Peter Norton is an associate professor of history at the University of Virginia.

Peter Norton says that in the 1920s, traffic engineers began to organize city streets.

His latest book is Traffic. It's out in paperback.

You can go find it at BuzzFeed.com. I'm sure you'll find it there.