That infuriating feeling when you’re just sitting in traffic, not moving, is costing you – to the tune of 42 hours and $1,400 in gas money a year, according to Driving Test’s survey of terrible morning commutes. They surveyed 943 people from some of the most gridlocked cities in America.
It’s enough to make you just get out of your car, leave it in standstill traffic, and start walking, like the scene at the end of R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts” video.
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The overall percentage of people who “hate” their daily commute is high, at 48.6%, but it’s higher for subway/train riders, at 51.8%. By city, hatred abounds, with Boston at 56%, San Francisco at 55.4%, and Chicago at 54.5%. Take a look at more of the cities and their hatred in the graphic below.
What people would do to banish their commute
It was found that people were willing to do almost everything, from the predictable sacrifices to truly desperate and depraved acts to stop commuting.
- Give up social media for a year: 35%
- Give up pornography for a year: 31%
- Be single for a year: 22%
- Get a root canal: 16%
- Eat a bowl of cockroaches: 6%
- Kill a stray cat or dog: 6%
Wow. That got dark fast. Moving on, let’s just file “commuting” under those other life inevitables, like death and taxes. Just be grateful you’re not a super-commuter.
Check out the rest of the list of things people would do to banish their commute.
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