SF ties L.A. for second worst traffic in America

Move over, Los Angeles. San Francisco might soon unseat L.A as California’s most congested city.

The two Golden State cities tied for second place on the Texas A&M Transportation Institute’s most recent Annual Urban Mobility Report, or list of the most congested cities in the United States.

According to the report, San Francisco and L.A. commuters lose 61 hours per year to traffic. Washington D.C. took the number one seed, with commuters spending an average of 67 hours annually in traffic.

To put that in perspective, the average American commuter wastes a total of 38 hours per year traffic.

The TTI report comes on the heels of preliminary data from the National Safety Council indicating that not only are we spending more time in our cars, but it’s getting more dangerous.

The NSC, a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization that receives traffic data from all 50 states, reported Monday that U.S. traffic fatalities have increased for the first time since 2005 and are up 5 percent from last year.

The number of injuries that require medical attention also jumped up 5 percent to 3.9 million and the cost of all these accidents is on the rise. The bill for traffic-related accidents in 2012 also rose from last year, topping out at $276.6 billion (up 5 percent from 2011).

Possible reasons for all the upticks include the growing problem of distracted driving, a surge in big rig fatalities, rising numbers of motorcyclist, bicyclist, and pedestrian deaths, low quality roads and of course, the fact that more people spending more time on the road just means more accidents.

In other words, maybe your time would be better spent with all the interesting characters on public transportation.