Has anybody else noticed this? I mean, that people routinely lie about how long their commute is? Yesterday, for instance, I was talking to a colleague who lives in the suburbs of Boston, and whose husband works in Rhode Island. How long a commute? “45 minutes,” she says. Now, granted, if you were to go at 3:00 in the morning and speed a little, you could probably do it in 45 minutes. This is a typical response, I find, to the subject – people take the absolute best-case scenario, shave 10% off, and represent it as their usual commuting time.
Drives me nuts, and I think they’re lying to themselves as much as they’re lying to me.
I’ve noticed this, too, and I’m not sure the incentive for doing it. I live in the DC area where commutes are notoriously long. Someone I know was thinking of moving to Front Royal, which is an ungodly long distance from DC or even the immediate suburbs but remarkably cheaper. Another co-worker said “oh, but if you leave your house at 7:00 you should have no trouble getting in by 7:45 or 8, that’s how long it takes me”. What a crock! I couldn’t get from Front Royal to DC in 45 minutes to an hour if it was like you said, 3 in the morning and no one else was on the road and the cops were on a donut break.
Maybe they don’t want people to know how absolutely crazy they are for living out in the sticks so they can pay $40,000 less for a house but add on 45 minutes to the existing commute time.
Oh, I do that all the time with my IL’s. We moved away from NYC/LI to RI and the lifestyle is easier for us than it is for them. But, of course they think their way is better so I do like to represent my 15 minute drive to work as 9 minutes. Whatever it is, it’s better than my SIL’s 1 hr. 45 ride on the LI Railroad so that she never sees her kids.
Perhaps because, at least where you have people commuting from a suburb to a large city, land and housing is more expensive near the city and having a shorter commute implies a higher economic status?
I had the opposite situation - and yet the opposite of Trunk, too. People always thought I was lying about my commute because it was so long (minimum, 2.5 hours each way… typically, 3 hours each way.)
I could stretch mine to 45 if I stayed on the bus, rode it to the other end of the route and came back to work to avoid crossing the street. I’ve thought about it, but then when would I read the SDMB?
snort I presume they’re commuting by helicopter–I just double checked and it’s 70 miles one way.
It could be some weird mental block where they don’t remember all of the trip, though I wonder if people just don’t want to admit that they’re wasting so much of their lives commuting.
Now that you mention it, I’ve been guilty of shaving time off my commute when discussing it with other people. I can’t for the life of me figure out why I do it though.
I don’t lie about my commute, as a matter of fact when people ask me about how long my commute is, I just say 60 miles each way.
Timewise, since I start work between 6 AM and 6:30 AM, it takes me about an hour to get to work. Going home from 1:15 to 1:30 unless there is bad traffic. On Fridays going home, I skip the Washington Beltway and go cross country which make my trip a little shorter distance-wise and I miss much of the traffic that backs up on that day.
Yeah, but if it was 3 in the morning and no one else was on the road and the cops were on a donut break, it’d probably only be about 52 miles, don’t you think?
Strange. Around here, long commutes almost seem to be a badge of honor, or more likely, a means or garnering sympathy.
“Oh poor me! I have to leave the house at 5:30 to make it to my office by 8:00!”
Oddly enough, I did have a 2 1/2 hour commute for about two months about 12 years ago. Left home at 5:30, drove 1 1/4 hours to the train station, then catch the 6:53 train for a 55-minute ride, then a 15-minute walk. Almost beat me to death, but I sure didn’t brag about it.
Okay, I’ll 'fess up. I usually tell people my commute is two minutes, but it’s probably more like three. I’m such a terrible liar!
I’ve noticed this too, though, especially with trips like Hampshire is talking about. I’ve also noticed that it goes both ways. If you’re going on a car trip with my grandmother that takes an hour and a half, you have to leave two and a half hours before you need to be there because she thinks it takes much longer. If you’re with my husband, you tell him how long you think it will take, and he’ll insist that it takes half the time.
Maybe it has something to do with the human tendency to exaggerate? It’s a good question.
My commute to work, under ideal road conditions, is an hour door-to-door one-way, including wait time for the outbound freeway-express bus at Islington subway station. I usually take a bit longer going home, if I’m not going downtown or doing something else.
I travel against the major traffic flows, and even then there are enough jamups and blockages on the Evil Death Highway of Doom known as King’s Highway No. 401 that I cannot really guarantee my arrival times. 95% of the time, it works according to the published bus schedules, but that other 5%… man. I’m glad to have professional bus and train drivers handling the works.
I can’t imagine how people heading into the city do it every day. Every day I pass through the 401/427 interchange, and the inbound lanes are always jammed jammed jammed. And they think I’m mad for taking the bus to work? At least I can read or sleep on the way there. My friend spends $200 a month on road tolls alone! (He’s moving house to eliminate that problem.)
I have to be envious of my other friend though… he teaches at the Collège Français downtown and lives across the street. His only problem is if the elevator is a little slow…
Luckily that commute is firmly in the past tense. I enjoyed my job, but that commute was contributing to my stress in many ways.