More Than Ever, Americans Waste Time In Traffic

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (CNN) -- Traffic jams in the United States are costing Americans $68 billion each year in wasted time and fuel, according to a new report.

Based on the analysis of 75 U.S. cities, the annual Urban Mobility Report from the Texas Transportation Institute finds the average rush-hour driver -- not just commuters, but all drivers -- wastes about 62 hours in traffic each year.

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More evidence of the need for my proposed Defense of Traffic Act?

I watch movies on my in dash DVD player.

That's comforting.

Do you know what a traffic jam is??

What?

I said it was comforting.

Do you know what a fender bender is??

I'm glad my commute doesn't take me anywhere near Jersey City.

I just got an iPod hookup for my car to make my commuting less horrible.

I amuse my self with thoughts of driving through medians, yards, and over lowered econoboxes.

You cared enough to respond.

Because I love you like a brother, Mikey.


My drooling, retarded brother, that is.

Y'know, I've played the hell out of GTA-series games but I've never shot anybody.

I have fantasized about driving on sidewalks, through medians, etc...

I think zombies wrote this study.

Well, let's see then. Let's say they're only counting 1 hour per weekday as "rush hour". 365 / 7 = 52R1 weeks per year, cancel out the R1 as being Christmas and deduct 2 weeks for vacation, then 50 x 5 = 250 work days for the average rush-hour driver. Then 64 / 250 = 32 / 125 which is a bit more than 1/4.

So the average rush-hour driver (hate to say it, but I dunno that the hyphen should be there) "wastes" a little over 15 minutes per day sitting in rush hour traffic.

O the humanity!!

"No WONDER I can't get anything done! I'm WASTING an entire FIFTEEN MINUTES each workday on sitting in traffic checking my email while listening to the traffic report and jabbering on my cell and scarfing down some fast food junk! There oughta be a law! "


This is just the sort of thinking that leads people to run red lights so they don't have to sit there for an entire FIFTY SECONDS waiting for the next green.

screw that calculation. You don't seem to understand or know what rush hour traffic is.

Many people take up to 2 hours to drive what would take 20 minutes on non rush hour trek.

My daughte lives 15 miles away from me. It often takes an hour to get there. Sometimes more.

And that stinks. But according to the quoted statistic, that's well above the average for a rush hour driver on any given day.

(Not that any such statistic is entirely reliable, of course.)


If I were in charge of a place of business in an area that suffered from traffic jams, I think I'd want to give my employees workshifts that were timed a bit unusually. Say, 8 to 4 instead of 9 to 5. I wonder how widespread that practice is.

It's actually very wide spread in the NY/NJ metro area. I recall it being in the news a very long time ago. The result is a continuous traffic jam between 4 and 7 o'clock every evening.

But I guess it'd be lots worse if all those folks left at the same time.

How much of it could be mitigated by everyone agreeing to drive in a way that best serves the efficient movement of traffic as a whole, rather than every individual fighting to get ahead of someone else?

Well in NYC, most of those people are just doing it to themselves. They can easily take mass transportation. They know that they will be in traffic every day.

In other parts of the country its not as easy to switch over to mass transportation.

Move.

But slightly more gay?

D'UH! That's not the point. I would have to live about a mile from her to avoid NYC traffic.

Plus I don't want to be closer to the EX.

Then you're doing something wrong.

You're right. I should be using my Jet Pack.

If you've had a jetpack all this time and haven't been using it you sure are dumb.

Only if I'm listening to Erasure.

When, in any aspect of human society, has that been the norm?

Same woman that was just listening to the radio whilst you were playing Black-Spiderman on the Brooklyn bridge?



Yup, I wouldn't live anywhere near her either. What were you thinking when you married her??

:IMHO!:

So the answer is to run away? That says a lot about you.