The Woes of the American Driver

Give up sex? Or coffee? I don't think so!

It's amazing what some people would give not to be stuck in traffic. What will you give up?

Good question, ajhope!

I gave up a good Silicon Valley job to move back out to the country and barely eke it out.

I don't think I'd trade the life I have now (normally free of traffic) to have a lot more material items and be back in that congestion. I don't think my wife, who's also from a small village would either (although she still likes to spend like it!) I remember her calling me crying, saying she had pulled to the side of the freeway during rush hour and was in panic and needed me to come and get her out of the situation.

I used to drive 45 miles one way in Atlanta traffic to get to work. Then we moved to central PA. When we first moved here, we rented a townhouse until we figured out where we wanted to buy a house. For that first year, I was almost exactly 1/2 mile from where I worked. I had no idea what to do with all the extra time! We have been in our house for about 5 years now and I am now about 15 miles to work but in Harrisburg traffic instead of Atlanta.

I wish I had discovered the benefits of a GPS when we were in Georgia as it would have been wonderful to help me find my way home when traffic was terrible and plans B,C,D, etc were also bad.

I'm sure the traffic in Harrisburg is better than Atlanta!

I've been stuck on I-285 in Atlanta, and it was pretty nasty. The last time I went through there I decided to just stay on I-75 and go right through the city. I think it was better than the beltway, as I got through pretty fast.

As much as I hate the cities there is a lot to be said for being close to work. In the Bay Area people were buying houses in the central valley up to 100 miles away or so because of the housing costs. They had a long commute each way and still had to put up with horrible traffic as they approached the Bay Area. Before I left the area there was a trend of putting deluxe townhouses/apartments in pretty much the inner city or above shopping centers, etc. Not my idea of ideal housing, but if it allows you to live close to work and save many hours a year of commuting, it may be worth it.

I used to live in London, UK and it took me over 90 minutes each way every day to get to and from work. Some days I drove, others I took public transport but whatever method I used, it took me 90 minutes.

Now I live in Cincinnati and have a 30-minute commute each way. On days when all the school kids are on vacation and there is no congestion near the three schools I pass, my commute drops to 25 minutes. Nice!

Despite my much reduced travelling time, traffic is my major cause of stress every day. Construction work on I-275 sucks! But my MSN traffic subscription warns me now of any major accidents so that I can avoid at least that bit of frustration before having to deal with the local traffic near the schools.

Many years ago I had a friend that bought his first motorcycle and had to ride it back to his house in the country from the middle of London. He said it was quite a harrowing experience.

I notice that MSN Traffic doesn't have have flow data for main freeways in the Cincinnati area and Navteq traffic does. Would flow data help you, or does just knowing about accident data, etc. work good for you?