Traffic Reports (ongoing since 2000)



click to preview one story on a video clip

This video project is an ongoing collection of accident stories told by people who survived them. They include business commuters, truckers, students, suburban and rural residents, traffic reporters, traffic engineers and rescue unit workers. The stories range from humorous to tragic. Several times a day we hear live traffic reports on radio and TV. It is the reporters' job to guide drivers around car wrecks and incidents, so that traffic can keep moving. The transportation system would not work without a massive infrastructure of monitoring, reporting and emergency response programs. Yet, it is awesome to realize that each day lives are dramatically transformed in an instant, and that the scale of those enormous events becomes miniature when viewed within the fabric of the everyday urban environment. The aim of this project is to bridge the gap between the omnipotent perspective of the traffic reporter and the human experiences that occur daily at street level.