Commutes even worse, study finds

Nobody ever professed to like traffic. But almost two-thirds of U.S. drivers say they feel traffic has gone from bad to worse in the last three years.

In a recent survey, motorists reported increased stress levels, anger and a negative effect on work or school performance because of irksome traffic. And 12% said commuting was cutting into their sleep time.

In a “pain index” derived from the drivers’ survey scores, Los Angeles was the worst-scoring city, followed by Atlanta and Miami. Minneapolis-St. Paul and Boston were the most benign of the 10 cities indexed. The Dallas-Fort Worth area, Chicago, San Francisco, New York and Washington were the other places measured.

The most-listed annoyances were start-stop traffic (37%) and rude or aggressive drivers (24%). At some point in the last three years, 27% said, traffic was so bad that they gave up on their errand or drive to work and turned back home. IBM Corp. conducted the online survey of 4,091 adult commuters from the 10 cities in May.