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Ever felt you spend half your life getting to and from work? New statistics now reveal the amount of time that commuters really do consume in their quest to earn a daily crust.

Apparently, those who drive to work in the UK spend an average of more than one year and 88 days stuck in traffic jams over their working life. Put another way, that’s roughly the same as the average UK employee’s entire holiday entitlement over 16 years, and that’s not even counting the parts of the journey when traffic is running free.

The study, by LHD Car Supermarket, asked 50 office workers to monitor their commuting time. They were then asked to subtract the time it would have taken them if there had been no cars on the road, leaving just the time spent in traffic.

The data revealed that the average worker spent 68 minutes per day stuck in congestion. This equates to 340 minutes per week and a staggering 272 hours per year. Over the course of a working life, four decades, this adds up to a whopping 453.33 days, nearly one and a quarter years. In fact, your average commuter could have voyaged to Mars and be on the return journey in the time spent stuck in congestion.

One man who took part in the study said: “I know that on a good day I can get to work in 20 minutes, however, those instances are few and far between. Most days I can expect to spend at least an hour and a half in the car.”

Another said: “Bad traffic can start the day poorly and can make an awful day at the office even worse. I swear, some days it would take me less time to walk to work.”

A spokesperson for LHD Car Supermarket said: “Sitting in traffic jams has to be one of the most annoying aspects of working life. The worst type of traffic is when you are trying to get home after a long day at the office. All you want to do is see your family and crash out on the sofa.

“Instead, you are moving at a snail’s pace through mile after mile of congestion getting increasingly fed up at the benign conversation and poor music on the radio. At some point we’ve all convinced ourselves that we’ll start walking or cycling to work, but then quickly change our mind the following morning when the weather is bad.”

Of course, in London, we’re slightly different. Only around 35 per cent of people drive to work compared with a national figure of 76 per cent.

More people now cycle to work in the capital, and many of the 100,000 motorcycles registered in London are used for commuting, so at least those hours getting to and from your desk can be fun, too.

If local authorities provided more parking for bicycles and motorcycles it would be a win-win situation, tempting more commuters on to two wheels, while speeding up traffic for those who insist on four.

Follow David Williams on Twitter: @djrwilliams