Americans Wasted 5.5 Billion Hours in Traffic in 2011

According to the 2012 Urban Mobility Report Americans lost around 5.5 billion hours in traffic in 2011.

According to the Texas A&M Transportation Institute’s 2012 Annual Urban Mobility Report, Americans lost 5.5 billion hours in traffic in 2011 estimated at around $121 billion, which translates in about $818 per person. Researchers say that although the congestion level is below the peak seen in 2005, this phenomenon is due to the bad economy.

“When you have enough information about what’s happening every day of the year, you can … tell people how much extra time they should allow,” Tim Lomax, a co-author of the report, told USA Today.

The report analyzed 498 urban areas and also made a top-ten of the most traffic-congested cities in the US: Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco-Oakland, New York-Newark, Boston, Houston, Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia and Seattle.

The report also recommends drivers to add 38 to 95 minutes for what was in the past a 20-minute trip if they want to arrive on time.

BlackBerry outage coincides with reduced number of traffic accidents

When BlackBerry servers crashed between Tuesday and Thursday last week, owners of the popular business phones were left without a tool they've come to rely on. At the same time, the server crash could have made roads in the Middle East that much safer.

The National reports that traffic accidents in Dubai dropped 20 percent compared to historical averages during the blackout. In Abu Dhabi, accidents dropped by 40 percent, and there were zero fatalities. If you're thinking that this isn't a significant enough sample to show that smart phones and distracted driving are inexorably linked, consider this: There is an accident in Dubai every three minutes.

Dubai police chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim pointed out to The National that the accidents resulting from distracted driving "range between minor and moderate ones, but at times they are deadly." Officer Al Harethi took it a step farther, adding "the roads became much safer when BlackBerry stopped working."

While the loss of BlackBerry service was no doubt a major inconvenience, these real-life statistics once again show that smart phones and driving just don't mix.

New Yorkers have longest commutes, also use public transport most

According to the American Community Survey conducted by the Census Bureau, "The New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA Metro Area had the longest average

commute, at 34.6 minutes."

We think that maybe more New Yorkers filled in the survey than anyone else. We can't help but think there are thousands of people in the Los Angeles metro area who would laugh at a 34.6-minute commute. Los Angeles, in fact, didn't even make the top five, even though it's a city so impervious to normal driving that distances are measured in time, not miles. But if that's what the Census Bureau says, then we believe it, the 405 be damned...

Other revelations are that average commute time has only gone up a few minutes since 1980, the foreign-born are more likely to use public transportation than native citizens, and that it takes an average of 14.2 minutes to get to work in Great Falls, Montana.