CrashCourse Format: Paperback

This book demands each of us look in the mirror and get real before we get behind the wheel.

When fragile human bodies have to occupy the same spaces as big, heavy, complex machines that can travel at high speeds, the outcome is inevitable. Some people will die. So why do we identify with the driver in the car rather than the person they have killed? Would you still shrug and chalk it up to random bad luck if that dead person was someone you loved?

Using the comic book format, this book vehemently dispels the notion that traffic accidents are inevitable and/or acceptable on any level, insisting that drivers own their responsibility, and consider the consequences of careless and dangerous behavior. It is part thought experiment, part testimonial, and part indictment of a dysfunctional transit environment that puts convenience for drivers ahead of logic, natural resources, and even ahead of human life. Crash Course questions the decisions that shape all our lives. Why don't roads serve everyone who needs to use them? What makes some people not worth protecting? Where do we start in fixing a broken system that facilitates the use of vehicles as murder weapons in places like Charlottesville, VA?

Woodrow Phoenix is a writer an artist and a designer whose work has appeared in publications across Europe, Japan and the U.S. He grew up in South London after his parents emigrated to the U.K. from Guyana. He is the author of Plastic Culture: How Japanese Toys Conquered the World.