Ever been stuck in traffic? Who hasn't? But if you live in Los Angeles, you're well familiar with being stuck in the parking lots that sometimes - and just sometimes - act like highways.
GOOD Magazine calculated that Los Angelenos spend 72 hours of their lives each year stuck in traffic (What? Just 72 hours? That's a gross underestimation). That's enough to read Tolstoy's War and Peace (estimated 65 hours, 24 minutes) or watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy almost 5x, or sitting through Wagner's Ring cycle 6.5x.
http://awesome.goodmagazine.com/transparency/012/trans012delays.html - via kottke
I think they're missing a couple of zeros.
I commuted into Boston/Cambridge/Waltham, Massachusetts for a number of years. Some quick math reveals that I spent 500+ hours per year stuck in traffic.
Thank god for NPR.