(FastCompany) — Technology can’t clear the idiots off the road on your drive to work, or improve the housing market so much that you’re no longer riding the train or bus. But the right kind of tech tools, along with some planning, can make your commute less a cost of living and more a productive warm-up. Here are some smart ways to rethink your commute.
Make some eye contact for a more human commute. A constant theme in Traffic, journalist Tom Vanderbilt’s fascinating multi-disciplinary look at the modern state of driving, is how the design of cars and roads turns driving into an impersonal, insulated experience. That makes it easier to feel angry, cheated, and brash without thinking about the people in other cars. Vanderbilt notes, for example, that drivers in convertibles use their horns less often than other cars, as they lack the anonymity of an enclosed cab.
