According to the Urban Mobility Report put together by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute shows that drivers in the Newark, New Jersey, and New York areas, suffer from the fourth worst traffic congestion in the nation.

The report seemed to indicate that the situation was not much better in other major urban centers across the United States. Cities such Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Houston and Philadelphia, also made it into the top 10.

That means pretty much every major economically powerful community in our nation currently loses millions of dollars every year in productivity because people simply can’t get where they need to go in an efficient way. In addition to money lost of decreased productivity, fuel costs for drivers who sit in traffic are steadily increasing, putting even more of a burden on their already stretched income.

In total, The Texas A&M Transportation Institute report shows that American workers spent more than 5.5 billion hours just sitting in traffic. That is a great deal of time wasted. Of course what the report does not contain is the impact all those traffic jams have on the human psyche. How many frustrated drivers lost control and caused more collisions, or how many evaded traffic by committing a traffic offense. Even worse, how many cases of ‘road rage’ resulted from frustrated drivers stuck in traffic?

Defensive drivers know enough than to be caught in traffic. They leave early for their destination and avoid driving in areas known for congestion – if they can help it. They also know enough to avoid becoming frustrated if the do become stuck in traffic.