Your Long Commute May Cost You More Than Time and Money
By Jeremy on Aug 01, 2007 with Comments 44
It may cost your life. We often think of that commute to work as a waste of time sitting in the car and spending a fortune on gas, but there is a hidden cost. There was a recent piece on Forbes about how unhealthy our commutes really are and what some of the consequences are.
It’s a Lifestyle Choice
I think David Rizzo, author of Survive the Drive! How to Beat Freeway Traffic in Southern California says it best:
We put our health second. To have a big house, we’re willing to put up with smog and a big drive. We sacrifice our longevity for short-term gains.
For many people, this is very true. They want to have that perfect house in the perfect subdivision, a pool, nice neighbors, good school, and they will drive 30, 40, 50 miles or more one way just to get to work every day. While it is nice to have the better things in life it comes at a cost. The obvious ones are time and money, but there are also many health concerns in play as well.
While I agree that it is a lifestyle choice to a great extent, there are plenty of situations that are not by choice. A job loss or job change can put someone into a position where they have to drive much further than they had to previously. There are also situations where a couple may have jobs on opposite sides of town or in different cities altogether where no matter where you live, someone would have to commute.
Air Pollution
While the Forbes article focuses on Southern California and its well-known air pollution problem, it doesn’t stop there. Most major metropolitan areas are going to have high levels of pollution on the busy freeways and if you’re driving on them, you can’t escape it.
Ultra-fine particulate matter has been linked with premature death, cardiovascular disease and respiratory illness, according to the California Air Resources Board.
Particle pollution kills people, whether they’re breathing it in over a short period or day in and day out for a year. It’s not like being hit by a car, but it shortens the lives of people by months to years.
Many people escape the city because they want to breathe cleaner air and get out of the pollution of the city, yet they could find themselves sitting in an even higher concentration of for a few hours every day just driving to and from work.
The Likelihood of Being Involved in an Accident
Most people at some point in their life will be involved in some sort of motor vehicle accident. It could be a minor fender bender, or it could be fatal. National Geographic released some statistics in 2006 about the probability of death from specific causes and the chance of dying in a motor vehicle accident is 1 in 84. The only three causes that beat these odds are a stroke, cancer and heart disease. So, if you are subjecting yourself to extended periods of time on the road compared to the average person, you are increasing your odds in being involved in an accident, which could prove fatal.
Is It Worth It?
After putting more miles on your vehicle, spending a lot of excess money on gas, lost productive time, the increased chance of being in an accident and possibility that you’re killing yourself via pollutants, is it worth it? Going back to what David Rizzo said, it is a choice for many, and an almost unavoidable necessity for others. Some may put more value on the things that make the long commute a requirement, while others may find ways to reduce the need to commute.
I’ll be the first to admit that I have a longer commute than I’d like. For us, it isn’t about a fancy house or a good school district, it is just a fact of the matter. My wife’s office is about 30 miles away from mine. We could have picked a location that was centrally located to both, each driving about 15 miles, but no matter how you slice it, since they are in opposite directions we’d essentially be covering the same distance between the two of us no matter where we lived. So, we opted to live close to her work location so that she only has to drive a couple minutes and spends less time on the road.
I don’t enjoy it and the time I lose while being on the road stinks, the stress of traffic and idiots on the road trying to kill me is turning my hair gray, but unfortunately at this stage of the game we don’t have many options. The good thing is that we’re very, very rural so the pollution impact is minimal. All I need now is a car that drives itself on a private road with no other drivers and I’ll be all set.
Is Your Commute Killing You?
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Oh man, you have NO idea how frustrated I get with people who fail to merge properly. These are people who drive the same roads every day like I do and know that the lane ends for about a mile before they get up there, yet they continue to try to zoom past a half dozen cars just to squeeze in.
What does that get them? About 100 feet closer to their destination which might save 10 seconds, yet cause traffic to slam on their brakes for another half mile back, not to mention endanger those they are cutting off.
Oh, and I’m also a bob and tom listener. Sometimes that is the only thing that gets me through the morning drive. The ride home on the other hand, that is a whole different story
It is absolutely okay for me since I live 1.2 miles from work. It does make me feel like I live at work though!
Yeah, for me, it’s Bob and Tom in the morning and Sirius Radio on the way home. The comedy stations on Sirius Radio crack me up.
I’m giving up a 5 minute commute to start a one hour commute because I live 60+ miles from an urban center and the only technical job here has dried up and there’s nothing left for me to do. Before you say “MOVE,” I’ve already done the math and even after having to spend $4,000 more per year on gas, I’m still saving $1,800 per year on property taxes and other “taxes” that I just don’t have out here.
45% of the working age people here commute this every day…it looks like the town is evacuating every morning M-F.
I here you on this one. I moved from London because of the commute. 4 hours a day in the car, congestion charge and parking, nightmare for anyone….
I have a 90-minute commute each way to work every day. I do it by necessity because I need to eat. The comments about using your commute time wisely by getting audio books or something to that effect are nice in theory, but it’s difficult to be in the throes of a story when you’re in stop and go traffic — and quite frankly, I don’t want to be on the road next to someone who’s too into a John Grisham plot twist to pay attention to the road.
I used to have a 1hr commute each way, and couldn’t take that anymore. It’s an individual choice, and my choice was to live in a smaller place, but closer to work.
I must say that I love being on the road, it gives me time to make my phone calls. When I’m at the office I dont make the calls, I interact with the office, but being on the road gives me the time to touch base with clients.
On weekends I enjoy getting in the car and just driving it helps clear my head, new scenery, big open spaces.
Author James Kunstler has written extensively on this very topic, and his theories, while controversial, are really fascinating. He predicts that the suburbs will be the slums of the future as gasoline becomes less and less affordable. In some new suburban developments heavily affected by the housing bust and foreclosure, three garage mini-mansions are already being taken over by squatter manufacturing meth.
Last week I had to spend about 5 hours in traffic jams. It`s really frustrating.
For me sometimes even more than losing a few bucks in stock market.
You know what else I’ve always been interested in finding out? The actual dollar value of all the gas wasted by people stomping on their brakes in traffic jams.
It can be worth it to commute. It can also be completely against financial security.
My husband and I work 70 miles apart. I have a 60 mile commute, he has less than 10. Due to the direction I drive, I have almost no traffic – and it’s all interstate. I have no desire to move closer to my job. For one thing, my stepson lives with his mom – 30 milesin the OTHER direction. For another, I make more than twice as much as if I had a job closer to home – and my husband’s chances of getting a move-worthy job are almost non-existant.
I’ve met so many people who say “you’re wasting time”; “You’re wasting money”; “Don’t you care about anything but money” when they hear that I drive an hour to work and another hour home. But every situation is so different. I tend to get very defensive when anyone judges people because of their commute, because it really can make sense for some people. And – luckily for me – I love NPR.
Everyone judges others on their commute, because most people aren’t in your situation. The majority commute just so they can have a bigger house. The funny thing is these are the people taking the biggest losses in this real estate market and the biggest losses to quality of life.
People said I was nuts to take my current job, since the pay’s far from extravagant. However, the commute’s about three minutes. I’m feeling smarter every day… Thanks for bringing this article back to the top. For many people, it really is time to run the numbers and see how many hours of their day are spend earning the money needed to drive to work and back.
I was having a conversation with a coworker about what it would take for either one of us to take a job out in the burbs of Chicago. There was a lot of hemming and hawing and another coworker jumped in with “$100,000.”
And with that the conversation was over. There was no debate.
I used to commute and I can tell you that the best thing is to do something productive.
When you are a driver, the best idea for me are audiobooks.
If you aren`t you should take a nap or read a book.
Don`t waste your time.
I can relate to the stress in driving. But that is nothing compared to the stress in trying to make a living in addition to that. My commute is nearly 2 hours while some of the other electricians and helpers that work for our company are about the same give or take 20 minutes. Most of us are going to walk off the job so soon as the one we’re currently working on is completed. (the next one is even farther away) We don’t get any vehicle allowances or compensation nor can we write off these commutes on taxes. After two years of wage freezes, and a 10% company wide wage cut, and another wage freeze that went into effect this year, this crap is no longer sustainable. Some guys are making less than $11.00/hr and are mad as hell. The company is banking on them to quit so they can skate around unemployment. To make matters worse, there are no jobs to be had closer to home. So it appears that if they are denied unemployment, they will sue for it or some of management’s heads will roll because they should have laid them off a long time ago. Think about it, when some of the guys there are not able to afford bringing a lunch to work because they spend their lunch money at gas station, you can only imagine the anger escalating at our jobsite. The same goes for the plumbers and HVAC guys who work there. It’s getting to the point where I’m about ready to ask for a layoff or pack heat because I’m concerned somebody is going to snap and go postal.
I currently commute 30 miles (45 minutes) through a rural area. I live in the closest “city” and even if my girlfriend didn’t live in a bigger city 45 minutes in the other direction, I still would not move closer to work because I get way too bored out in the country. I’m desperately trying to find work in her city but no luck in this economy. We’re both pretty burnt out from the commutes. Anyone else in this backwards situation where they work in a rural area but want to live in a suburban or urban area?
I commute 65 miles each way. It takes me 2 hours and 40 minutes on the road every day. BUT… my colleage lives in the east end of town and works in the west. They take a bus and their commute is longer. My driving is mostly country driving and I enjoy the country life when i get home. The cost really has to be worth it though because I fill up every other day and it costs me $30 when I fill… then there are tires every two years, brakes, tune ups, oil changes etc.
It is not for everyone.