Stuck in a jam... for a week

Scots drivers waste hours of their lives going nowhere in rush-hour gridlock

MOTORISTS are wasting more than a week of their lives each year stuck in traffic on Scotland’s gridlocked roads.

The average driver will spend the equivalent of 8.44 days sitting going nowhere – or 202.5 hours clocked up at the rate of 27 extra minutes lost each way on their daily commute.

The hardest hit, however, are those travelling on the busiest commuter route into Edinburgh, who spend 42 minutes extra each way locked in rush-hour jams – equating to 315 hours or more than 13 ‘lost’ days.

The report, by insurance company Admiral, looked at travel times for various routes into the centre of 13 major UK cities, including Glasgow and Edinburgh.

It compared a 9am arrival on a Monday – one of the busiest times – with 9am on a Sunday, when the roads are at their quietest. The cities were then ranked according to the percentage increase in journey time, rather than the actual increase in time.

On this basis, Glasgow is in fourth place in the UK, with rush hour travel taking 153 per cent longer, while Edinburgh is ranked 10th, with 117 per cent longer.

Over the course of 45, five-day working weeks (allowing for holidays), the average amount of time wasted by motorists in Glasgow is 7.2 days per year and 9.7 days for those in Edinburgh.

But some individual commuter routes fare far worse than others.

Those driving from Livingston, West Lothian, to Edinburgh city centre via the M8 will waste 42 minutes each way, equivalent to 13 days per year, the worst in Scotland.

Drivers commuting from Gorebridge, Midlothian, to Edinburgh via the A7 waste 27 extra minutes each way daily – around eightand-a-half days a year.

Commuters from both Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, and Paisley, Renfrewshire, using the M8/A8 to Glasgow city centre will also waste 27 minutes each way daily.

Overall, London tops the UK traffic jam league table, with rushhour journeys taking 184 per cent longer.

The report pointed out that there are more bumps during rush hour, leading to costly insurance claims.

Jo Cox, of Admiral, said: ‘These figures confirm what drivers in Scotland have long suspected – that they spend a huge amount of wasted time sitting in their cars.’