Tuesdays and Thursdays are the peak days for traffic congestion on Yorkshire’s roads, which is when drivers need to be on their guard to avoid putting themselves at risk of a car insurance claim.
According to research by TomTom, Tuesdays and Thursdays see roads clogged with more traffic than on any other day of the week.
The satnav firm’s data revealed that Yorkshire is the worst region for rush-hour traffic, with drivers brought to a standstill for an astonishing 86 hours in total.
Journey times are around 28 per cent slower than average in the Leeds-Bradford area when roads are congested, with journeys extended by 63 per cent and 60 per cent during the peak morning and rush-hour periods. Put another way, every hour commuters spent on roads across Leeds and Bradford was accompanied by a 36 minute delay during peak congestion periods.
Although Yorkshire tops the UK congestion charts, London is not far behind. Drivers in the capital clock up an extra 74 hours per year in traffic jams, where bumps with other cars can be commonplace as concentration levels wane.
The most congested day so far this year was Friday, January 27th, when average free-flow speed was just 36 miles per hour.
Perhaps most shocking is the rate at which Bradford and Leeds congestion has increased in recent years. Traffic jams have grown at a far higher rate than any other city in Europe, the TomTom figures show.
This has seen Leeds-Bradford leap from 19th place on the TomTom Congestion Index in 2011 to seventh place in 2012, one place ahead of the capital London in eighth place.
While this will doubtless be a worry for British drivers, they should be more concerned about taking their car to the popular European cities that rank even higher on the list.
Holiday destinations such as Rome, Brussels and Paris all rank higher than UK regions, highlighting that it is as important to remain vigilant on roads abroad, as on home soil, to avoid an accident that would force motorists to make a car insurance claim.
Far and away the most congested city on the continent is Warsaw in Poland, which tops the index for a second year in a row. Journeys are 89 per cent longer during peak-time morning congestion, with just a slight improvement to 86 per cent in the evenings.
For congestion-free roads, British motorists would be better opting for a journeys in Amsterdam in The Netherlands, Valencia in Spain or Bern in Switzerland.
The Dutch capital sees average journey times increased by a paltry 15 per cent during rush hour, while drivers in Bern face even fewer delays, averaging just eight per cent.
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Yorkshire ‘Most Congested Region’
