Ed Sobey

A Field Guide to Roadside Technology - first, the negatives.


This book is geared toward younger readers. The Amazon age rating is “High School/Adult”, but my judgement is that it’s more suited to the 8 to 12 age group; it’s full of useful admonitions like “Don’t open up control boxes you might find by the side of the road to see what’s inside.” One would hope that the high school/adult group would have more sense than that, and if they don’t they won’t be interested in this book anyway.


Next, the author is from the Pacific Northwest and that shows. The book includes descriptions of things like fish traps, fish ladders, and container ship unloading cranes that may in fact be common roadside sights in Washington but are unlikely to be of much service to people from Iowa.


Similarly, the roadside categories includes “Along navigable waters” and “Near Airports”. The number of places in the country where you can see operating lightships from the roadside is, AFAIK, zero. Similarly if you encounter an aircraft ground power unit by the side of the road it’s a good bet that you’ve made a serious wrong turn and are now driving on a runway. Conversely, the only roadside railroad technology described is “signal bungalow” and “manual switch” - since various kinds of ships are mentioned you would think various kinds of rolling stock would also be included - and while irrigation equipment is listed there’s no other farm machinery, a serious handicap if you’re trying to keep the kids interested while on I80 through Nebraska.


Finally, the pictures are small and often not very good illustrations of the equipment being described. For example, the illustration of a vacuum breaker doesn’t look anything like any vacuum breaker I’ve ever seen.


Now, all that being said, I can see this a being a useful book within its limitations. There were some things I didn’t already know (for example, if there’s a white “X” painted on an induction current loop traffic detector, it marks a place where the loop is very close to the surface and can be tripped by a bicycle). If you have curious kids in the right age group, this book could explain a lot of things seen on a cross-country trip and possibly provoke some interesting family discussions about the meaning and importance of infrastructure. For an adult with an interest, however, I’d recommend Infrastructure: Field Guide to the Industrial Landscape or a text on the specific technology that intrigues you.… (mehr)