Why We Drive: Toward a Philosophy of the Open Road Paperback – June 8, 2021

I bought a physical copy of this book for a friend after I listened to the audiobook version. If you are interested in the philosophy of driving, why we drive, the history of driving, and the future of the car and automation and the experience, then this is the book for you. Echoes many sentiments from the author's previous book, "Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work."

I'd give WHY WE DRIVE 10 stars if I could. I seldom read a book in one sitting (I have a pile I rotate through) but I raced through this. If one goes back in time a few hundred years, in Europe travelers had to have passports and permission just to travel from one town to another. Naturally, serfs seldom were given permission. Crawford demonstrates that we're approaching that singularity, where Google and a bureaucracy will determine if we're entitled to stray outside our proscribed boundaries. Meaning, no more cruisin' for burgers or fall color tours of northern Michigan. Might hurt the environment. Might run over a squirrel. Their flattened corpses are so aesthetically displeasing. Autonomous vehicles would in effect hand the keys over to the likes of Greta Thundermug and a cadre of faceless technocrats.But the book covers much more than this: lab rats taught to drive custom coupes, a look at adult soap box racing in Portland and the pretentious elites who dwell there, desert racing, encounters with bears (i.e., state troopers) etc. I like the way he brings the utter failure of urban planning into the discussion as well.Unless you're one of the techno elites determined to imprison humanity in neat, soulless little boxes, eating vegan and listening to NPR, this book will likely strike a chord. Food for thought, at any rate.

Just finished this interesting and eye-opening book by Matthew Crawford. You will like this book if; (1) you love cars and driving (especially, classic cars and motorcycles), (2) you harbor a suspicion about Big Tech’s motives for advancing the “Internet of Things,” and (3) you’re willing to ride Crawford’s meandering road from detailed explanations of a 4-stroke engine (“suck, squeeze, bang, and blow”) to somewhat-too-libertarian-for-my-taste positions on personal freedoms and self-sufficiency. But… if you’ve ever been driving a well-tuned, classic motor down a perfect stretch of road, and experienced the nearly Zen-like state of mind that experience can create, you’ll find a kindred spirit in Matthew Crawford. I’d recommend it with some reservations.

As an urban planner, ex-aerospace engineer and life-long auto enthusiast, I found this to be the most thought provoking of recent books I have read. In 2013 . I was part of a team that produced a book entitled “The Car in 2035: Mobility Planning for the Near Future “. The team included architects, urban planners and car designers from Art Center College of Design. Our entire premise was the coming age of self-driving cars and how to accommodate this into the urban fabric. I had my doubts about this, as an advocate envisioned a network with no traffic controls since traffic roundabouts would replace all intersections. Furthermore, pedestrians would simply walk into the traffic flow and be accommodated by the self driving cars. I confess I don’t have this much faith in infallible technology. My current view is just because you can, or think you can, accomplish this technological feat, doesn’t meet society should accept it( much like the earlier decision on the SST due to sonic booms, alteration of upper atmosphere chemistry and poor economics). So, kudos to Crawford for raising multiple “Red Flags”John Stutsman,Pacific Palisades,CA

I haven't finished this yet, albeit what I have read is a really good story. Factual, relative, current and delivered with just enough " Fun " from the author. I have not read Matthew Crawford before so wasn't sure what to expect. His deep thoughts ( sorry SNL ) are dead on and seem to connect with my own a multiple levels. If you have read Larry Webster's " Never Stop Driving " I feel you may enjoy Matt's outlook and commentary. So far ( Chapter 2 ) I'm thoroughly enjoying this story.

Much more philosophical than I had anticipated. It moves well, but does not deal with the joy of driving, or the hardships of driving. Little joy, mostly pain.

Crawford is an erudite and broad thinker. We share a passion for diving whether it is cars or motorcycles. But driving is just an entry point for a more complicated thought process about our willingness to cede control and independence for the illusory notion of safety and security. He is suspicious of state interference in our lives snuck in through the gate by appeals to notions of greater community gain while at the same time gradually stripping us of freedom of movement and action. Of even greater concern is the willingness of people to hand over their freedoms to corporations busy building a system of surveillance capitalism designed to influence our thinking, our buying, and our very identities.It is a wake up call to those who see technology as a benign presence in our world.

Crawford reviews much of the "embodied cognition" work from The World Beyond Your Head with the importance of manual competence he described in Shop Class as Soulcraft, but here the emphasis is on moving oneself. This book is not JUST about driving; it's about being a driver in the more metaphorical sense, in our lives more generally, rather than becoming a passive passenger as bureaucracies of all stripes take over the wheel... and what effect that can have on our abilities to be humans.It's a fantastic read, not really better or worse than his previous two, but with significantly more humor, which I found to be necessary given the rather dark picture he portrays of a passive future life.