The average adult spends the equivalent of almost a year of their life stuck in a queue, it has been revealed. A study of 2,000 Brits shows we will wait patiently (or not so patiently) whilst stuck in jams, waiting for the traffic lights or queuing for the toilet for a collective two hours and five minutes every week.
Over the course of one year that’s around 108 hours, or the equivalent of four-and-a-half days spent waiting.
During the average adult lifetime of 60.5 years this is a staggering 273 days, or 6,554 hours spent queuing.
Queues on the road actually make up the bulk of time spent in stand-stills- over an hour a week is spent grinding through slow-moving traffic (over 130 DAYS across a lifetime).
Raffaela De Vittorio, spokesman for luxury toilet brand Geberit AquaClean, said:
“Britain is renowned for being an incredibly polite nation, and as such as we are generally happy to take our place in a queue and wait our turn, especially if it’s something worth waiting for – such as using the loo.
“But the figures are quite astonishing when you work out how long this means we queue over the course of our adult lifetime – a lot can happen in a person’s life over a year.
“This is fine if patience is your strong point, but for those people who are in a permanent rush, the time could be better spent elsewhere”.
The research additionally found that motorway queues were the most stressful- 28% claimed nothing is worse than a string of cars looming on the horizon.
5% claimed the daily grind was worse, as queuing at traffic lights tipped their stress-levels over the edge.
Surprisingly, this meant that traffic queues were deemed more stressful than the airport, as only 17% thought the combination of queues a flight entails built up to a worse experience.
The poll also shows the longest Brits are prepared to queue for is one hour and 19 minutes- not helpful when you’re stuck in traffic, especially as Brits only see this kind of queue worthwhile when waiting for the likes of theme park rides or a delayed train.
Raffaela De Vittorio continued:
“As the research shows, Brits are quite happy to queue for most things in life especially if it’s a memorable or luxury experience.
“We’re firm believers that if you’re prepared to queue, then you should at least being queuing for the absolute best”.
EACH WEEK
| Queuing for Toilet | 17 minutes |
| Queuing for food and drinks on a night out | 19 minutes |
| Queuing in the supermarket | 29 minutes |
| Queuing in traffic | 60 minutes |
| TOTAL | 125 minutes |
Each year:
* 125 minutes x 52 weeks = 6,500 minutes or 108.33 hours or 4.5 days
* Average adult lifetime (age 18 to 78.5)
6,500 x 60.5 = 393,250 minutes or 6,554.16 hours or 273.09 days
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