To think one hour for six miles is ridiculous

[Lilacviolet]

No accident or other obvious reason, sheet weight of traffic.

AIBU to think this country’s roads are a joke?

I would walk. Six miles would take me about 1.75 hours though.

I clicked on this all ready to give the OP encouraging words about RUNNING 6 miles in an hour being a credible time, but obv it's nothing about that.

Where I am traffic lights are a real problem and aren't suitable for the way the roads are used. Example, there is a light controlled roundabout, and one road into it is frequented by buses and lorries (much more so than the other entrances). But the traffic lights are only on green long enough to let 2 maybe 3 cars through. If there's a bus or lorry, the lights have changed back to red before they have even gone through fully. They end up sort of stuck between 2 lights, blocking an exit for the oncoming traffic.

It's a problem on many junctions too. One lot of traffic lights near a business park, with a fire station and a bus depot (and again lots of lorries), the lights change in a really weird order, so that vehicles going from 2 sides get stuck in the middle bit trying to merge into the lanes, blocking those waiting to turn into the business park (really hard to explain!)

We had some heavy road works recently, on a busy junction, with temp lights and the traffic flowed so much better during roadworks, than they do in normal circumstances!

My journey to work would take 2 buses, I'd have to get one to the bus station, walk to the otherside of the city centre to get another one then walk another 10-15 minutes from the last stop to work. Would probably take 1.5hrs in total.

Cycling wouldn't be feasible because I carry a lot of stuff for work, have to drop others off on my way and plus I care for a relative so have to run errands like food shop etc for them after work.

Public transport is woeful. I work in a hospital. It’s only a dgh but it employs 6000 people and serves a population of about 250000. There are 100000 a&e attenders annually. To get to work for my start time of 8am I would have to leave the night before. I live only 12 miles away and it’s my closest hospital. It’s a 20 min drive. You would think getting to your local hospital for 8 am on public transport would be doable, but it’s not.

I live 15 miles from work and there's no public transport at all in that direction. To get the bus I'd have to travel to a town in the other direction and then catch another bus to the town where I work, which would take the best part of two hours versus driving it in 25 minutes, and physically wouldn't get me to work on time as the buses don't start early enough.

I would love to cycle but the roads are treacherous for cyclists. Twisty turny hilly country roads with poor visibility and crazy drivers. Not many people do cycle on these roads and the few who do are braver than me. I cycled around London for yeas as my primary mode of transport and really miss it but I value staying alive too much.

You're not 'stuck in traffic'.
You ARE traffic.

We should all be campaigning for more viable alternatives to wasteful polluting individual non-essential travel.

Yanbu roads in the this country are generally not good.

On the other hand a lot of people have no alternative but to drive. I live in a semi rural area - public transport only covers some areas, starts at 7am and finishes at 10pm, it's as expensive as keeping a car, it's inconvenient, slow and poorly maintained. Life in many parts of the country revolves around individual car ownership - education, work, leisure, healthcare etc can be impossible to access without a car. This is the way we have built our society so 6 miles in an hour is a natural consequence.

Again, similar here. And it would cost a lot more too - same for you?

Absolutely. My daily train fare would be equal to my weekly fuel bill - it's an absolute nonsense.

I couldn't cycle - the roads are single track and unlit for large sections of the journey and that's not to mention the hills! You'd have to be massively fit to cycle that journey twice a day (and have some kind of death wish in winter!)

Wherever possible, businesses should encourage working from home or greater choice and flexibiliy in hours. Whilst that isn't possible for many jobs, if there was greater uptake in those jobs where it is possible then it would remove a % of cars from the roads during rush hour, leaving them clearer for those that have to use them.

There has been quite an increase over recent years but it hasn't yet gone far enough, imo. It has some real £ benefits for companies also as they spend or lose less money to sick, appointments, office space etc.

If public transport felt less like being moved like cattle, that would also help.

I’ve just checked - to drive to our local major hospital takes 45 minutes. By public transPort it’s 3 buses and takes 2 1/2 hours. So 5 hours of travelling v 90 minutes. Nobrainer

There is a shopping centre near to me which has had people unable to get out of the car park for an hour and a half!

Wherever possible, businesses should encourage working from home or greater choice and flexibiliy in hours. Whilst that isn't possible for many jobs, if there was greater uptake in those jobs where it is possible then it would remove a % of cars from the roads during rush hour, leaving them clearer for those that have to use them.

Nice idea, but there are limits to what can be done. For example, people who drop kids off at school in the morning have pretty restricted options for their working hours as they then need to collect them from school at the end of the day, so their "commute" is pretty well fixed for during school hours, as they can't shift their working day forwards or backwards as then they'll not be able to do the school runs before/after.

Same with people who are customer facing and where staff are needed to be in work within normal working hours as expected by the customers who expect the staff to be in at 10am and 3pm, but not at 8am or 8pm.

Even "back office" staff who don't usually see customers, are still expected to be at work during the core working hours, when other staff may require support etc.

You can realistically only "flex" the working day by an hour or so before/after the core 9-5 hours, and most big firms already do that. The "rush hour" would be a lot worse if there wasn't already so much flexitime and flexed working day.

I think what really needs to happen is to push firms to reverse their "centralisation". Get them back to several local/regional offices rather than concentrate themselves in 1 or 2 super-sized sites. That will spread out their workers over several different sites/towns/cities and reduce the impact of enormous numbers of people trying to get to the same place at the same time, when the majority of the country has plenty of spare capacity in terms of roads, railway lines, land, etc.

I'd love to see some government initiatives to encourage firms to employ more locally, such as reduced national insurance for staff living within say 5/10 miles of the workplace site. That would really make firms sit up and think about relocating or opening local/regional sites.

I've worked with people who have cycled 20 miles to work and 20 miles back.

You’ve worked with, but not you?

An initial 2 hour commute? (Presuming you mean each way). Four hours per day? 20 hours per week? Instead of 5 in a car? Reducing to 10 hours per week instead of 5 in a car? Can you see what you’re saying? Add in additional childcare costs if you need it. And what about carrying heavy books/ items needed for work? Bad weather? Add in time to get changed etc etc

I plucked 20 miles as an example, but just because it can be done, doesn’t mean it’s feasible.

The whole of the public infrastructure needs to be overhauled, but that won’t happen.

I drive in a rural area, my commute is 8 miles and takes around 15 - 20 minutes (depends on being held up behind a tractor).

I wish I COULD use a bus. But I either walk a mile and a half uphill and wait for a bus that comes every hour. Then change to another bus, which also runs every hour. On an average day, a 5-mile journey may take 20 mins by car, or 2+ hours by bus. Each-way. Cycling would mean risking my life, dodging the parked cars, weather, potholes, and foreign lorries!

I'll stick to my car.

I'd happily get the bus, if it weren't for the fact if have to leave 90 minutes earlier, travel 8 miles in the wrong direction and then change, go back the way I've come and then still arrive 15 mins late to work. As a teacher that's really not an option. I live within catchment and there is no public transport that would get me there on time. I do car share with colleagues though.

My husband occasionally attempts to get the train to his work (opposite direction). He has to leave the house 40 mins earlier, and arrives 30 mins later than he would if he had driven. It also costs £10 more than the fuel for that trip... so that would be £50 per week if he chose to do that daily. Also involves relying on Scotfail which as fellow Scottish posters will realise is not really a great option.

Scotland is seriously lacking in viable public transport options outside of the big cities and main routes.

My car is my car, everyone else’s cars are traffic.

Or move closer to work? Car drivers moaning about traffic is just insane.

In the land where car is king everyone sits in traffic jams and moans about it.

I live small town . Trains out are once an hour .
Bus prices here are astronomical . I regularly walk local but if I need to leave town I drive.

@Vulpine I already live within the catchment of my school...

Move closer? Cycle?

On the occasions I drop my OH and DS at Oxford Parkway, it takes up to na hour to get to the centre of Oxford (5ish miles)

They often arrive in London before I'm parked up

I can’t move closer as the city is very expensive.

Cycling isn’t really an option. I have equipment and there aren’t any showering facilities at work.

I live over 20 miles from the school - admittedly rural, and it's a large catchment. It's on dangerous roads that frequently (at least once every couple of weeks) are closed due to accidents so no, I'm not cycling. And no, I'm not moving closer because I'm lucky to afford to live within catchment as it is. Plus as previously stated, my husband also has a job in the opposite direction.

As j previously said - if you don't live in a major city OR on a major route (Glasgow to Edinburgh, for example) then often the car is your only sensible and/or affordable choice. I don't think that people living in big cities (Edinburgh/Manchester/London) or even moderately urban towns (is in Scotland perhaps Livingston) fully grasp this.