=+18. Traffic delays. The Texas Transportation Institute

(tti.tamu.edu) studies traffic delays. They estimate that in the year 2011, 498 urban areas experienced 5.5 billion vehicle hours of delay, resulting in 2.9 billion gallons of wasted fuel and $121 billion in lost productivity and fuel costs.

That’s about 0.7% of the nation’s GDP that year. Data the institute published for the year 2001 include information on the Total Delay per Person (hours per year spent delayed